l!i 


ll!ili!illii!!i 


w 


PRICE 


TWENTY-FIVE    CENTS,    NET 


A  PRIMER 
OF  THE  WAR 

FOR 

AMERICANS 


WRITTEN  AND  COMPILED  BY 


AN  AMERICAN 


J.  WILLIAM  WHITE 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  JOHN  C.  WINSTON  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


A  PRIMER  OF 

THE  WAR 

FOR  AMERICANS 


A  PRIMER 
OF  THE  WAR 

FOR 

AMERICANS 


WRITTEN  AND  COMPILED  BY 

AN  AMERICAN 


J.  WILLIAM  WHITE 


J      1  »      t,  >  J 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  JOHN  C.  WINSTON  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


\Mt. 


Copyright,   1914,  by 
J.  William  White 


1    »  .  '    »     »    J 
•   I  *,»    »     >  , 

?         0         O       3  t 


J         1     1  T      O    >     '    > 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


1.  What  Evidence  Exists  as  to  the  Real  Reason, 

THE  Fundamental  Cause  of  This  War?....       9 

2.  What  is  the  Evidence  as  to  the  Events  Imme- 

diately Leading  Up  to  the  War  in  Their 
Relation  to  the  Culpability  of  Germany?.     35 

3.  What  Has  Been  the  Attitude  of  the  German 

Apologists  in  Relation  to  Belgium  Since 
the  Violation  of  Neutrality? 48 

4.  Is  There  Any  Evidence  Which  Tends  to  Show 

Why  the  Present  Time  Was  Selected  By 
Germany  to  Precipitate  the  War? 54 

5.  What  Are  the  Principles  Represented  by  the 

Opposing  Forces  in  This  War? 58 

6.  In  Addition  to  the  Evidence  Already  Presented 

AS  TO  THE  Mental  Attitude  of  the  Average 
German  Toward  His  Own  Race  and  Toward 
Other  European  Races,  Are  There  Any 
Facts  Tending  to  Show  His  Real  Attitude 
Toward  America? 60 

7.  What   is   the   Attitude  of   German-Americans 

Toward  This  War  and  Toward  the  Prin- 
ciples Involved?   67 

8.  How    Much    Reliance    is    to    be    Placed    Upon 

Statements  Emanating  from  Germany  at 
This  Time?  83 

(5) 


897649 


6  CONTENTS 


VKQU 


9.  What  is  the  Truth  as  to  the  Pre-eminence  of 
German  "Kultur,"  of  German  Civilization, 
OF  German  Achievement  in  Letters,  Arts 
and  Sciences  ? 88 

10.  What  Are  the  Duties  of  America  at  This  Time?     94 

11.  What  Are  the  Interests  of  America  at  This 

Time?    109 

12.  What,  in  the  Light  of  This  War,  Should  Be 

the  Aim  of  This  and  Other  Civilized  Coun- 
tries for  the  Future  ? 119 

Sum  MARY   121 


PREFACE 

Very  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  war  its  Uter- 
ature  was  already  so  voluminous,  the  statements  made 
by  the  warring  nations  were  so  contradictory,  the  ac- 
cusations and  counter-accusations  were  so  numerous, 
the  pleas  of  impassioned  advocates  were  so  irrecon- 
cilable, that  a  certain  bewilderment  and  confusion  on 
the  part  of  Americans  was  almost  inevitable. 

It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  intelligence  and 
clear  thinking  of  the  nation  that  from  the  day  Eng- 
land's "White  Book"  was  laid  before  the  world  this 
country  as  a  whole — with  the  exception  of  those  Ger- 
mans living  here,  who  are  known  as  "German- Ameri- 
cans"— ranged  itself  spontaneously  and  with  practical 
unanimity  on  the  side  of  the  AlHes.  But  however  cor- 
rect this  position  was — and  I  believe  it  was  absolutely 
correct — it  soon  became  apparent  that  not  everyone 
who  occupied  it  could  give  cogent  and  convincing  rea- 
sons for  the  belief  that  was  in  him,  or  could  refute 
clearly  and  logically  the  opposing  arguments  and  cor- 
rect the  misstatements  on  which  they  were  often  based. 

As  I  found  this  to  be  my  own  case  I  began  to  set 
aside,  or  to  note  down,  as  if  I  were  preparing  for  a  lec- 
ture, the  questions  which  seemed  to  me  of  fundamental 
importance  and  the  answers  that  most  impressed  and 
satisfied  me.  Later,  for  the  attempted  benefit  of  my 
family  and  of  a  few  friends,  and  for  the  further  clari- 
es) 


8  PREFACE 

fication  of  my  own  views,  I  threw  these  memoranda 
into  the  form  of  a  series  of  questions  and  answers.  In 
doing  this  I  had  then  no  definite  idea  of  any  wider  use 
of  this  material  and  in  now  acceding  to  the  suggestion 
of  some  friends  that  the  matter  thus  brought  together 
be  given  wider  distribution  I  should  very  much  like  it 
to  be  understood  that  I  do  not  feel  that  I  have  any 
special  fitness  for  the  self-imposed  task.  If  I  lay  the 
result  before  readers — if  I  have  any — outside  the 
small  circle  for  whom  it  was  originally  intended,  it  is 
only  to  try  to  do  just  for  this  moment  the  little  that  lies 
in  me  to  help  a  cause  in  which  I  profoundly  believe. 

If  the  paper  has  any  value  it  will  not  be  from  w'hat 
I  have  written,  but  from  the  collocation  of  the  opinions 
of  others,  each  of  whom  is  a  recognized  authority  as  to 
the  subject  he  deals  with. 

Wherever  my  answers  have  involved  questions  of 
fact  I  have  taken  pains  to  attain  accuracy.  When  they 
have  related  to  matters  of  opinion  I  have  endeavored 
to  give  the  basis  for  such  opinions.  I  adopted  the 
Socratic  method  in  the  beginning  because  for  me, 
without  special  training,  it  was  the  easiest.  I  have  re- 
tained it  for  the  same  reason. 

I  beg  to  add  finally  that  any  proceeds  that  may  ac- 
crue from  the  sale  of  this  pamphlet  are  pledged  in 
advance  to  the  Belgian  Relief  Fund. 

/.  William  White. 

1810  S.  Rittenhouse  Square, 
Philadelphia. 


What  evidence  exists  as  to  the  real  reason,  the 
fundamental  cause  of  this  zvar? 

A.  a.  The  most  conclusive  evidence  is  to  be  found 
in  the  writings  and  teachings  of  prominent  and  repre- 
sentative Germans  during  the  past  forty-three  years, 
i.  e.,  ever  since  the  victory  of  Germany  over  France. 

These  writings  and  teachings  demonstrate  the  de- 
termination of  Germany  to  attain  "World  Power." 
This  determination  was  the  fundamental  cause  of  the 
war.  The  writings  in  question  are  fairly  illustrated 
by  excerpts  given  below.  It  should  be  premised  that 
as  soon  as  these  doctrines  became  widely  known  to 
the  world  outside  of  Germany  and  exerted  their  in- 
evitable influence  upon  public  opinion,  apologists  and 
repudiators  sprang  up  among  the  Germans,  or  the 
"German-Americans."  For  example,  to  take  only  a 
few  of  the  latter :  Herr  Ridder,  of  the  Staats  Zeitung, 
says  (1)  in  reference  to  certain  English  writers: 

"I  am  unable  to  come  to  any  other  conclusion 
than  that  their  readings  have  been  confined  to  Bern- 
hardi  and  Treitschke,  those  two  German  writers  who 
were  never  a  part  of  German  intellectual  life  and 
were  both  disowned  by  the  German  people. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  Bernhardi  is  not  even  read 
in  Germany.  Of  his  works,  published  by  Gotta,  only 
8,000  copies  have  been  given  to  the  public  to  date. 

(9) 


10      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"The  writings  of  Treitschke,  as  a  historian,  are 
regarded  by  Germans  as  briUiant,  but  Treitschke  is 
remembered  by  them  as  a  man  of  intense  party  feel- 
ing who  labored  under  the  spirit  of  1870,  and  was 
incapable  of  true  sympathy  with  their  racial  aspira- 
tions." 

No  evidence  that  I  have  been  able  to  find  serves  to 
justify  these  statements. 

Another  German-American,  Mr.  Rinald,  calls 
Bernhardi  ''a  retired  German  General  of  jingoistic 
tendencies,"  and  asks  for  "proof"  that  his  book  had  the 
approval  of  the  Kaiser.  It  would  seem  sufficient  reply- 
to  him  to  ask  for  proof  that  it  had  his  disapproval. 
In  the  absence  of  such  proof  it  is  fair  to  assume,  in 
view  of  the  Kaiser's  incessant  activities  and  restless 
supervision  of  all  things  German,  and  especially  of  all 
things  military,  that  at  least  the  book  did  not  greatly 
displease  him.  Still  another,  Professor  Jastrow,  also 
repudiates  Bernhardi  as  an  exponent  of  German 
thought,  but  gives  no  more  convincing  reasons. 

The  following  quotation  from  a  letter  of  Dr.  Jas- 
trow to  The  Nation  (November  12,  1914)  well  illus- 
trates the  tactics  I  am  considering.  After  asserting 
that  at  first  "we"  (he  professes  to  be  speaking  for 
Americans)  threw  the  sole  responsibility  of  the  war 
upon  the  Kaiser,  he  continues : 

"When  doubt  arose  as  to  the  accuracy  of  this 
picture  of  a  modern  combination  of  Machiavelli  and 
Napoleon,  we  discovered  Bernhardi,  and  found  that 
his  influence,  or  that  of  the  whole  party  which  he 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS       11 

represents,  was  behind  it  all.  Bernhardi  frequently 
quoted  a  man  by  the  name  of  Treitschke,  and,  al- 
though very  few  in  this  country  had  ever  heard  of 
him  and  scarcely  anybody  had  read  him  (for  his 
works  had  not  been  translated  into  English),  we  were 
willing  to  take  him  on  faith,  and  were  quite  satisfied 
that  his  teachings  involved  the  conquest  of  all  of 
western  Europe  and  of  England  for  the  purpose  of 
spreading  German  'culture';  and  to  this  programme 
we  added,  of  our  own  accord,  the  subsequent  con- 
quest of  the  United  States." 

He  must,  like  jMiinsterberg  (page  7S),  be  writing 
to  impress  a  peculiarly  infantile  type  of  American 
mind.  The  effort  to  belittle,  for  this  purpose,  the  great 
Pan-German  historian,  by  speaking  of  him  as  "a  man 
named  Treitschke,"  is  particularly  characteristic. 

But  his  whole  argument  to  the  effect  that  because 
we  "have  just  discovered"  these  people,  therefore  we 
are  wrong  in  believing  that  they  represent  Germany, 
is  scarcely  worthy  of  notice. 

What  does  it  matter  that  Americans  generally 
were  not  familiar  with  their  writings  until  this  shock- 
ing war  was  begun. 

Of  what  importance  is  it  that  we  were  in  igno- 
rance of  their  grandiose  plans  and  sinister  purposes  ? 

What  bearing  on  the  real  question  has  the  fact 
that  Treitschke  had  not  been  translated  into  English 
when  we  first  began  to  take  an  interest  in  him  ?  None 
whatever.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  try  to  drag  that 
herring  across  the  trail. 


12      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

The  question  remains:  What  zvere  their  teach- 
ings and  what  reason  is  there  to  beheve  that  they 
greatly  influenced  German  public  opinion  ? 

As  to  Dr.  Jastrow's  final  sentence  that  ''we  added 
of  our  own  accord  the  subsequent  conquest  of  the 
United  States,"  I  beg  to  refer  the  reader — with  at 
present  merely  incidental  mention  of  the  offensive 
"we"  and  "our" — to  pages  110-13. 

We  are  asked  to  believe  that  a  former  member 
of  the  German  army  stafif,  who,  so  far  as  we  know, 
has  never  been  reproved  or  censured  or  contradicted 
by  the  Kaiser,  or  by  any  other  member  of  that  staff, 
who  wrote  as  an  expert  in  both  German  statesmanship 
and  German  strategy,  and  whose  book,  published  three 
years  ago,  forecast  with  entire  accuracy  the  actions 
and  movements  of  Germany  in  the  present  war,  was 
''disowned  by  the  German  people"  and  did  not  repre- 
sent the  military  caste  to  which  he  belonged. 

It  is  not  possible  to  believe  this  or  to  think  that  he 
was  not  in  full  touch  with  the  scarcely  concealed  pur- 
poses of  the  "Weltmacht  oder  Niedergang"  party. 
His  book  was  an  amazingly  frank  exposition  of  those 
purposes  and  an  extravagant  and  unqualified  eulogy 
of  militarism. 

Before  the  war  his  uncontradicted  statements 
were  generally  accepted  as  embodying  the  views  of  the 
autocratic  caste,  and  in  the  present  campaign  both  the 
German  armies  and  the  German  diplomats  have,  even 
down  to  relatively  unimportant  details,  followed  with 
curious  exactness  his  prophetic  tactics. 


•      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS       13 

As  to  Treitschke,  whom  many  of  the  German- 
American  commentators  similarly  repudiate,  he  was 
unquestionably  one  of  their  great  national  historians. 
Mr.  Bryce  calls  him  "the  famous  Professor  of  His- 
tory." His  lectures  at  Berlin  were  hstened  to  for 
years  by  crowded  and  enthusiastic  audiences,  his 
teachings  as  to  Politik  became  a  gospel.  Mr.  Norman 
Hapgood  (2)  says  of  him: 

"He,  most  of  all,  made  intellectual  Germany 
drunk  with  the  idea  of  her  so-called  destiny.  He 
taught  her  that  all  history  led  up  to  the  leadership 
of  the  Teuton.  .  .  .  Germans  quote  him  as  no 
historian  is  quoted  by  the  English  or  the  French.  In 
interpreting  history  he  is  their  Bible.  Their  political 
thinkers  never  tire  of  him." 


On  the  other  hand,  I  have  failed  to  find  in  the 
writings  of  the  German  apologists  any  evidence  of 
ante-bellum  repudiation  of  these  writers,  and  in  the 
absence  of  such  evidence,  and  in  the  light  of  the  col- 
lateral proof  furnished  by  the  writings  of  others  (also 
quoted  below),  and  by  the  outbreak  and  conduct  of 
the  war,  they  must  be  considered  as  representing  the 
views  of  at  least  that  part  of  the  German  people  who 
were  intelligent  enough  to  understand  them.  The 
quotations  follow.  I  have  used  some  of  those  employed 
by  Viscount  Bryce  in  a  recent  article  (3),  and  have 
added  to  them  from  a  list  of  my  own  almost  as  striking 
and  conclusive: 


14      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"War  is  in  itself  a  good  thing.  It  is  a  biological 
necessity  of  the  first  importance." 

"The  inevitableness,  the  idealism,  the  blessing  of 
war  as  an  indispensable  and  stimulating  law  of  devel- 
opment must  be  repeatedly  emphasized." 

"War  is  the  greatest  factor  in  the  furtherance  of 
culture  and  power.  Efforts  to  secure  peace  are 
extraordinarily  detrimental  as  soon  as  they  can  influ- 
ence politics." 

"Efforts  directed  toward  the  abolition  of  war  are 
not  only  foolish,  but  absolutely  immoral,  and  must 
be  stigmatized  as  unworthy  of  the  human  race." 

"Courts  of  arbitration  are  pernicious  delusions. 
The  whole  idea  represents  a  presumptuous  encroach- 
ment on  natural  laws  of  development,  which  can  only 
lead  to  more  disastrous  consequences  for  humanity 
generally." 

"The  maintenance  of  peace  never  can  be  or  may 
be  the  goal  of  a  policy." 

"Efforts  for  peace  would,  if  they  attained  their 
goal,  lead  to  general  degeneration,  as  happens  every- 
where in  nature  where  the  struggle  for  existence  is 
eliminated." 

"Huge  armaments  are  in  themselves  desirable. 
They  are  the  most  necessary  precondition  of  our 
national  health." 

"The  end  all  and  be  all  of  a  State  is  power,  and 
he  who  is  not  man  enough  to  look  this  truth  in  the 
face  should  not  meddle  with  politics."  (Quoted  from 
Treitschke's  "Politik.") 

"The  State's  highest  moral  duty  is  to  increase 
its  power." 

"The  State  is  justified  in  making  conquests  whei> 
ever  its  own  advantage  seems  to  require  additional 
territory." 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS       15 

"Self-preservation  is  the  State's  highest  ideal  and 
justifies  whatever  action  it  may  take  if  that  action  be 
conducive  to  that  end.  The  State  is  the  sole  judge 
of  the  morality  of  its  action.  It  is,  in  fact,  above 
morality,  or,  in  other  words,  whatever  is  necessary 
is  moral.  Recognized  rights  (i.e.,  treaty  rights)  are 
never  absolute  rights ;  they  are  of  human  origin  and, 
therefore,  imperfect  and  variable.  There  are  condi- 
tions in  which  they  do  not  correspond  to  the  actual 
truth  of  things.  In  this  case  infringement  of  the  right 
appears  morally  justified." 

"In  fact,  the  State  is  a  law  unto  itself.  Weak 
nations  have  not  the  same  right  to  live  as  powerful 
and  vigorous  nations." 

"Any  nation  in  favor  of  collective  humanity  out- 
side the  limits  of  the  State  and  nationality  is  impos- 
sible." 

"War  is  a  biological  necessity  of  the  first  impor- 
tance, a  regulative  element  in  the  life  of  mankind 
which  cannot  be  dispensed  with,  since  without  it  an 
unhealthy  development  will  follow,  which  excludes 
every  advancement  of  the  race,  and  therefore  all  real 
civilization." 

"Just  as  increase  of  population  forms  under  cer- 
tain circumstances  a  convincing  argument  for  war, 
so  industrial  conditions  may  compel  the  same  result." 

"Frederick  the  Great  recognized  the  ennobling 
effect  of  war.  'War,'  he  said,  'opens  the  most  fruit- 
ful field  to  all  virtues,  for  at  every  moment  constancy, 
pity,  magnanimity,  heroism  and  mercy  shine  forth  in 
it ;  every  moment  offers  an  opportunity  to  exercise 
one  of  these  virtues.'  " 

"We  can,  fortunately,  assert  the  impossibility  of 
efforts  after  peace  ever  attaining  their  ultimate  object 
in  a  world  bristling  with  arms,  where  a  healthy  ego- 


16      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

ism  still  directs  the  policy  of  most  countries.  *God 
will  see  to  it,'  says  Treitschke,  'that  war  always  recurs 
as  a  drastic  medicine  for  the  human  race.'  " 

"We  ought  to  know  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  eternal  peace;  we  ought  to  have  always  in  our 
minds  that  saying  of  Moltke's :  'perpetual  peace  is  a 
dream  and  not  even  a  beautiful  dream.  But  war  is 
a  link  in  the  divine  system  of  the  universe.'  "  (4) 

"The  German  nation  has  been  called  the  nation 
of  poets  and  thinkers,  and  it  may  be  proud  of  the 
name.  To-day  it  may  again  be  called  the  nation  of 
masterful  combatants,  as  which  it  originally  appeared 
in  history."     (5) 

These  quotations  could  be  largely  added  to,  but 
as  their  authors  are  generals,  philosophers,  theolo- 
gians, and  princes,  they  seem  representative  enough 
to  show  the  spirit  that,  whatever  may  have  been  its 
numerical  or  geographical  extent,  actuated  and  in- 
spired that  portion  of  the  German  people  who  had  the 
power  last  midsummer  to  commit  the  entire  nation  to  a 
gigantic  war,  with  "Deutschland  iiber  AUes"  and 
''Weltmacht  oder  Niedergang"  as  its  battle  cries. 

Every  student  of  Nature  recognizes  and  deplores 
the  cruelty  inseparable  from  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence underlying  the  great  biological  law  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest. 

But  it  has  remained  for  these  spokesmen  of  Ger- 
many to  apply  it  to  civilized  nations  without  essential 
change  or  modification,  eliminating  all  considerations 
of  morality,  of  altruism,  of  kindliness  to  the  weak  or 
helpless,  of  everything,  in  fact,  which  serves  to  distin- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS       17 

guish  us  from  our  fellow  animals.  There  is  little 
enough  at  the  best,  but  Bernhardi's  "biological  neces- 
sity'' of  war,  like  the  "necessity" — to  overrun  Belgium 
— of  the  German  Chancellor,  is  simply  a  barefaced  re- 
turn to  the  ethics  of  the  tiger  or,  in  its  coldbloodedness, 
of  the  crocodile. 

It  was  amusing,  though  irritating,  to  find  an 
American  (Professor  Jastrow),  (6)  in  face  of  the 
above  evidence  and  much  more  that  is  similar,  crying 
to  the  American  people : 

"Let  us  be  fair  and  recognize  that  the  spirit  of 
militarism  is  strong  in  all  of  the  warring  nations," 

and  then  going  on,  with  the  tendency  that  most  of  our 
"German-American"  disputants  have  clumsily  shown, 
to  belittle  while  attempting  to  conciliate  the  country  of 
their  adoption,  to  say: 

"Even  we  are  not  entirely  free  of  it,  for  does  not 
Theodore  Roosevelt  voice  a  widely  prevailing  senti- 
ment when  he  advocates  warfare  as  essential  to  the 
full  strength  of  the  nation?" 

The  answer  to  which  is,  of  course,  that  Colonel 
Roosevelt  never  "voiced"  or  otherwise  favored  any 
such  sentiment,  and  that  no  sensible  person  ever  be- 
lieved it  to  be  widely  prevalent  in  this  country. 

The  distinction  between  the  advocacy  of  sufficient 
armaments  to  ensure  respectful  treatment  from  mili- 
tary or  naval  bullies  and  the  advocacy  of  "warfare"  is 


18      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

so  patent  that  the  misstatement  impHes  a  confusion  of 
thought  that  should  much  lessen  the  value — if  it  had 
any — of  the  author's  labored  but  superficial  impar- 
tiality. The  real  animus  invariably  crops  out  in  all 
these  "German-American"  writers  and,  in  the  present 
case  the  "appeal  for  fairness  and  moderation"  contains 
the  statement  that  it  was  a  "privilege" 

"To  see  a  great  united  people  rising  to  fight,  not 
for  aggrandizement,  for  ports  on  the  Atlantic  Ocean, 
or  for  colonies,  or  eager  for  conquest  of  any  kind,  but 
struggling  solely  for  their  existence  to  preserve  the 
fruits  of  their  labors  of  the  last  thirty  years." 

The  "appeal"  also  describes  the  readiness  of  "Ger- 
many" "to  promise  the  integrity  of  France  and  even  of 
the  French  Colonies  if  England  would  remain  neu- 
tral." (The  italics  are  mine.)  It  does  not  mention 
the  fact  that  this  suggestion  was  made  by  Prince 
Lichnowski  (the  German  Ambassador  in  London)  on 
his  individual  initiative  and  without  authority  from 
his  government;  or  that  on  July  29th  the  German 
Chancellor,  when  asked  about  the  French  colonies,  had 
declined  to  commit  himself  (English  White  Book, 
No.  85) ;  or  that  at  about  that  time  Germany  had  failed 
to  say  that  it  was  "prepared  to  engage  to  respect  the 
neutrality  of  Belgium  so  long  as  no  other  power  vio- 
lates it,"  although  France  had  given  an  unequivocal 
promise  to  that  effect.  Nor  does  it  allude  to  the  Eng- 
lish reason  for  refusal  to  accept  the  informal  sugges- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS       19 

tion,  namely,  "that  France  without  losing  territory 
might  be  so  crushed  as  to  lose  her  position  as  a  Great 
Power  and  become  subordinate  to  German  policy." 

This  is  a  digression,  but  it  will  serve  as  an  ex- 
ample of  the  "fairness  and  moderation"  of  the  Miin- 
sterbergs  and  Franckes,  the  Ridders  and  Jagemanns 
and  the  Hilprechts  and  Jastrows. 

h.  But  Question  1  is  not  yet  fully  answered.  Can 
any  collateral  evidence  of  the  determination  to  attain 
to  "World  Pozver"  be  found  in  the  estimation  in  which 
Germans  hold  their  country  and  tJiemselvesf 

I  think  it  can. 

A  little  book  with  the  crude  title  of  "Germany's 
Swelled  Head,"  written  by  Emil  Reich,  a  Hungarian,  I 
believe,  and  published  in  London  in  1907,  contains 
much  interesting,  sometimes  amusing,  information  on 
this  subject. 

The  writer  quotes  various  authors  in  support  of 
the  statement  that  when  the  Kaiser  speaks  or  writes 
of  Greater  Germany  he  "in  all  sincerity  means  two- 
thirds  of  Europe.  He  means  that  the  German  Empire 
of  the  near  future  will,  and  by  right  of  Race  ought  to, 
comprise  two-thirds  of  Europe."  He  adds  that  this 
idea  may  appear  too  childish  for  serious  consideration, 
says  that  in  all  countries  there  have  been  single  eccen- 
trics who  have  absurdly  overrated  the  significance  and 
importance  of  their  nation,  and  that  such  persons  do 
not  prove  very  much  as  to  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
majority  of  a  people.    But  he  insists  that 


20      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"That  which,  in  other  countries  never  rises  be- 
yond a  mere  oddity  is,  in  contemporary  Germany,  a 
vast  wave  of  national  thought.  In  the  Fatherland,  as 
has  long  been  remarked  by  many  an  observing  trav- 
eler or  scholar,  the  writers,  teachers,  journalists  and 
scholars  of  the  day  have  an  infinitely  greater  influence 
on  the  people,  than  similar  brain-workers  ever  wield 
in  England." 

He  then  quotes  from  "The  Foundations  of  the 
XlXth  Century,"  a  book  which  he  says  was  warmly 
and  pubhcly  approved  by  the  Kaiser,  and  which  sold 
largely  in  Germany  and  gave  rise  to  a  mass  of  contro- 
versial literature.  The  author,  Chamberlain  by  name, 
says : 

"By  Germans,  I  mean  the  various  populations  of 
Northern  Europe  who  appear  in  history  as  Kelts,  Ger- 
mans, Slavs,  and  from  whom,  mostly  in  inextricable 
confusion,  the  peoples  of  modern  Europe  are  sprung. 
That  they  came  originally  from  a  single  family  is  cer- 
tain, but  the  German,  in  the  narrower  Tacitean  sense, 
has  kept  himself  so  pre-eminent  among  his  kinsmen 
intellectually,  morally  and  physically,  that  we  are 
justified  in  applying  his  name  to  the  whole  family. 
The  German  is  the  soul  of  our  culture.  The  Europe 
of  to-day,  spread  far  over  the  globe,  exhibits  the  bril- 
liant result  of  an  infinitely  varied  ramification.  What 
binds  us  into  one  is  the  Germanic  blood.  .  .  . 
Only  Germans  sit  on  European  thrones.  What  has 
happened  is  only  prolegomena.  .  .  .  True  his- 
tory begins  from  the  moment  when  the  German,  with 
mighty  hand,  seizes  the  inheritance  of  antiquity." 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      21 

Reich  quotes  further  from  the  work  of  Ludwig 
Woltmann,  ''Die  Germanen  und  die  Renaissance  in 
Italien"  (1905),  in  which  the  effort  is  made  to  prove 
that  Benvenuto  CelHni,  Michaelangelo,  Lorenzo  Ghi- 
berti,  Giovanni  BeUini,  Leonardo  da  Vinci  and  Raf- 
fael,  were  all  of  German  birth  or  ancestry.  He  admits 
that  this  may  be  merely  misplaced  erudition,  or  "stuff 
and  twaddle."  His  point  is  that  it  is  characteristic, 
that  it  is  taken  seriously  in  Germany,  and  that  it  was 
gravely  noticed  in  some  of  the  oldest  and  most  respect- 
able German  reviews.  He  quotes  again  the  author  of 
the  "Foundations  of  the  XlXth  Century,"  who  says, 
apropos  of  the  overrunning  of  the  Holy  Roman  Em- 
pire by  the  Germans : 

"We  can  regret  only  one  thing— that  the  German 
did  not,  everywhere  his  conquering  arm  preyed,  ex- 
terminate more  completely,"  and  that  consequently 
the  Latins  "gradually  recovered  wide  territories  from 
the  only  quickening  influence  of  pure  blood  and  un- 
broken youth,  in  fact,  from  the  control  of  the  highest 
talent."  Elsewhere  the  same  writer  laments  that  Italy 
"is  lost,  irredeemably  lost,  because  it  lacks  the  inner 
driving  power,  the  greatness  of  soul  which  would  fit 
its  talent.  This  power  comes  from  Race  alone.  Italy 
had  it  as  long  as  it  possessed  Germans." 

Reich  says  that  Friedrich  Lange,  erstwhile  editor 
of  the  Tagliche  Rundschau,  has  gone  so  far  as  to  in- 
vent and  preach  a  species  of  "German  religion" 
{Deutsche  Religion),  and  from  many  pulpits  it  has 


22      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

been  announced  that  "the  German  people  is  the  elect  of 
God,  and  its  enemies  are  the  enemies  of  the  Lord." 

He  quotes  from  the  "Vorwarts"  an  extract  from 
an  oration  by  the  theologian,  Lezius : 

"Solomon  has  said :  'Do  not  be  too  good;  do  not 
be  too  just.'  The  Polish  press  should  be  simply  anni- 
•  hilated.  All  Polish  societies  should  be  suppressed, 
without  the  slightest  apology  being  made  for  such  a 
measure.  This  summary  procedure  should  be  like- 
wise applied  to  the  French  and  Danish  press,  as  well 
as  to  the  societies  of  Alsace,  Lorraine  and  Schles- 
wig-Holstein.  Especially  should  no  consideration 
whatever  be  shown  to  anything  relating  to  the  Poles. 
The  Constitution  should  be  altered  with  regard  to  the 
latter.  The  Poles  should  be  looked  upon  as  helots. 
They  should  be  allowed  but  three  privileges :  to  pay 
taxes,  serve  in  the  army,  and  shut  their  jaws"  (sic). 

He  (Reich)  supports  his  views  by  the  statement 
of  the  Russian  novelist,  Dostoiewski,  who  writes : 

"Chauvinism,  pride,  and  an  unlimited  confidence 
in  their  own  strength  have  intoxicated  the  Germans 
since  the  war  (1870).  This  people,  that  has  so  rarely 
been  a  conqueror  and  has  so  often  been  conquered, 
had  all  of  a  sudden  beaten  the  nation  that  had  humil- 
iated all  the  other  nations.  .  .  .  On  the  other 
hand,  the  fact  that  Germany,  but  yesterday  all  par- 
celled out,  has  been  able  in  so  short  a  time  to  develop 
so  strong  a  political  organization,  might  well  lead  the 
Germans  to  believe  that  they  are  about  to  enter  on  a 
new  phase  of  brilliant  development.     This  conviction 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      23 

has  resulted  in  making  tlie  German  not  only  Chau- 
vinistic and  conceited,  but  flightly  as  well ;  it  is  not 
only  the  Teutonic  grocer  and  shoemaker  now  who 
are  over-confident,  but  professors,  eminent  scientists, 
and  even  the  ministers  themselves  as  well." 

"No  wonder  that  the  arrogance  of  the  'Elect 
Ones  of  God'  comes  out  at  every  possible  and  im- 
possible occasion.  When  Bismarck  w^as  asked  what 
he  would  do,  should  some  one  hundred  thousand 
British  soldiers  be  landed  on  the  north  coast  of  Ger- 
many in  case  of  a  war  with  Great  Britain,  France  and 
Germany,  he  replied :  'I  should  have  them  arrested 
by  the  police.'  " 

He  continues : 

"Can  one  wonder,  under  such  circumstances,  that 
the  Kaiser  a  few  years  ago,  at  the  celebration  of  the 
two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Prussia,  exclaimed :  'Nothing  must  be 
settled  in  this  world  without  the  intervention  of  Ger- 
many and  of  the  German  Emperor.'  " 

He  might  have  added  the  following : 

"Only  one  is  master  of  this  country.  That  is  I. 
Who  opposes  me  I  shall  crush  to  pieces.  .  . 
Sic  volo,  sic  juheo.  .  .  .  We  Hohenzollerns  take 
our  crown  from  God  alone,  and  to  God  alone  we  are 
responsible  in  the  fulfilment  of  our  duty.  .  .  . 
Supreme  lex  regis  voluntas." — J.  Ellis  Barker,  an 
English  writer,  born  and  educated  in  Germany.  (The 
Nineteenth  Century,  September,  1914.)     (7) 


24      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

He  might  also  have  quoted  Professor  Rudolf 
Eucken  of  the  University  of  Jena,  a  leader  of  German 
ethical  thought: 

"To  tis  more  than  any  other  nation  is  intrusted 
the  true  structure  of  human  existence;  as  an  intellec- 
tual people  we  have,  irrespective  of  creeds,  worked 
for  soul  depth  in  religion,  for  scientific  thorough- 
ness. .  .  .  All  this  constitutes  possessions  of 
which  mankind  cannot  be  deprived;  possessions,  the 
loss  of  which  would  make  life  and  effort  purposeless 
to  mankind."     (8) 

The  Berlin  Deutsche  Tageszeitung  urges  the  ne- 
cessity of  forcing  the  German  language  on  the  whole 
world. 

"It  is  a  crying  necessity,"  the  Berlin  paper  says, 
"that  German  should  replace  English  as  the  world 
language.  Should  the  English  language  be  victori- 
ous and  become  the  world  language  the  culture  of 
mankind  will  stand  before  a  closed  door  and  the  death 
knell  will  sound  for  civilization." 

After  talking  of  the  "moral  decay"  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  ''fearful  brutalizing  influences  and 
complete  animalization  of  the  human  species"  in 
"every  land  where  the  English  language  is  spoken"  the 
Deutsche  Tageszeitung  continues : 

"Here  we  have  the  reason  why  it  is  necessary  for 
the  German,  and  with  him  the  German  language,  to 
conquer.    And  the  victory  once  won,  be  it  now  or  be 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      25 

it  one  hundred  years  hence,  there  remains  a  task  for 
the  German  than  which  none  is  more  important,  that 
of  forcing  the  German  tongue  on  the  world.  On  all 
men,  not  those  belonging  to  the  more  cultured  races 
only,  but  on  men  of  all  colors  and  nationalities,  the 
German  language  acts  as  a  blessing  which,  coming 
direct  from  the  hand  of  God,  sinks  into  the  heart  like 
a  precious  balm  and  ennobles  it. 

"English,  the  bastard  tongue  of  the  canting  island 
pirates,  must  be  swept  from  the  place  it  has  usurped 
and  forced  back  into  the  remotest  corners  of  Britain 
until  it  has  returned  to  its  original  elements  of  an  in- 
significant pirate  dialect." 

Major-General  von  Disfurth  (retired),  in  an  ar- 
ticle contributed  to  the  Hamburg  Nachrichten,  writes 
as  follows : 

"No  object  whatever  can  be  served  by  taking  any 
notice  of  the  accusations  of  barbarity  leveled  against 
Germany  by  their  foreign  critics.  We  owe  no  ex- 
planations to  any  one.  Whatever  act  committed  by 
our  troops  for  the  purpose  of  discouraging,  defeating 
and  destroying  the  enemy  is  a  brave  act  and  fully 
justified.  Germany  stands  the  supreme  arbiter  of  her 
own  methods.  It  is  no  consequence  whatever  if  all 
the  monuments  ever  created,  all  the  pictures  ever 
painted,  all  the  buildings  ever  erected  by  the  great 
architects  of  the  world  be  destroyed,  if  by  their  de- 
struction we  promoted  Germany's  victory.  War  is 
war.  The  ugliest  stone  placed  to  mark  the  burial  of 
a  German  grenadier  is  a  more  glorious  monument 
than  all  cathedrals  Europe  put  together.  They  call 
us  barbarians.  What  of  it?  We  scorn  them  and  their 
abuse. 


26      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"For  my  part  I  hope  that  in  this  war  we  have 
merited  the  title,  barbarians.  Let  neutral  peoples  and 
our  enemies  cease  their  empty  chatter,  which  may 
well  be  compared  to  the  twitter  of  birds.  Let  them 
cease  to  talk  of  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims,  and  of  all 
the  churches  and  all  the  castles  in  France  which  have 
shared  its  fate.  Our  troops  must  achieve  victory. 
What  else  matters?" 

Professor  Adolph  Lasson,  a  German  Privy  Coun- 
cillor  and  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  BerHn  Univer- 
sity, writes: 

"A  man  who  is  not  a  German  knows  nothing  of 
Germany.  We  are  morally  and  intellectually  superior 
beyond  all  comparison  as  are  our  organizations  and 
our  institutions." 

As  to  the  facts  bearing  upon  this  preposterous 
overvaluation  of  German  achievement,  I  shall  have 
something  to  say  later,  but  at  present  my  object  is  to 
present  a  small  portion  of  the  evidence  of  the  state  of 
mind  which,  pervading  all  Germany,  did  so  much  to 
bring  on  the  war. 

Reich  further  quotes  Treitschke  as  follows : 

"Then  when  the  German  flag  flies  over  and  pro- 
tects this  vast  Empire,  to  whom  will  belong  the  sceptre 
of  the  universe?  What  nation  will  impose  its  wishes 
on  the  other  enfeebled  and  decadent  peoples?  Will 
it  not  be  Germany  that  will  have  the  mission  to  ensure 
the  peace  of  the  world?  Russia,  that  immense  colos- 
sus still  in  process  of  formation,  and  with  feet  of  clay, 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      27 

will  be  absorbed  in  its  home  and  economic  difficulties. 
England,  stronger  in  appearance  than  in  reality,  will, 
without  any  doubt,  see  her  colonies  detach  themselves 
from  her  and  exhaust  themselves  in  fruitless  strug- 
gles. France,  given  over  to  internal  dissensions  and 
the  strife  of  parties,  will  sink  into  hopeless  decad- 
ence. As  to  Italy,  she  will  have  her  work  cut  out  to 
ensure  a  crust  of  bread  to  her  children.  .  .  . 
The  future  belongs  to  Germany,  to  which  Austria 
will  attach  herself  if  she  wishes  to  survive." 

Reich  gives  many  other  quotations  to  support  his 
main  thesis,  judgment  on  which  I  must  now  leave  to 
my  readers.  It  was  as  follows,  and  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  it  was  written  more  than  seven  years  ago : 

"The  actions  of  a  nation  like  the  Germans  are, 
in  the  first  place,  influenced  by  their  state  of  mind; 
and,  given  that  that  state  of  mind  in  Germany  is  now 
one  bordering  on  absolute  megalomania,  or  the  most 
morbid  form  of  self-conceit  and  swePed-headedness, 
it  is  safe  to  conclude  that  their  actions,  too,  will  soon 
assume  forms  of  the  most  daring  self-assertiveness 
and  aggression."     (9) 

While  opinions  differ  as  to  the  personal  responsi- 
bility of  the  Kaiser  for  this  war,  it  seems  to  me  that 
he  so  fully  typifies  in  his  own  character,  actions  and 
behavior,  the  megalomania  of  the  nation  that  it  is 
nothing  less  than  absurd  to  describe  him  as  reluctantly 
pushed  into  the  war  and  as  struggling  until  the  last 
moment  for  peace. 


28      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

The  Kaiser  is  in  all  probability  a  neuropsycho- 
pathic, said  to  have  a  chronic  and  recurring  infection 
of  the  middle  ear  (a  not  unknown  cause  of  grave  cere- 
bral disease),  and  evincing  many  symptoms  of  the  con- 
dition known  as  paranoia,  in  which  there  are  usually 
present  more  or  less  definite  systematized  delusions, 
the  other  mental  processes  remaining  approximately 
normal.  If  in  such  case  the  insane  premises  of  the 
paranoiac  are  admitted,  his  conclusions  will  often 
legitimately  follow.  If  the  Kaiser  is  Kaiser  by  Divine 
decree,  by  the  direct  appointment  of  God,  as  he  has 
repeatedly  asserted,  he  cannot  be  blamed  for  thinking, 
as  he  has  often  shown  that  he  does  think,  that  what- 
ever he  does  is  right.  But  is  it  possible  in  the  year 
1914  that  a  quite  sane  person  can  believe,  as  the 
Kaiser  surely  does  believe,  that  he  is  God's  special 
appointee — appointed  to  rule  over  and  guide  the  des- 
tinies of  sixty  millions  of  people?  I  have  no  doubt 
the  Miinsterbergs  will  have  some  answer  to  that  ques- 
tion that  will — to  them — be  psychologically  satisfying. 
But  I  defy  them  to  answer  it  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
American  people. 

That  this  mental  condition  is  compatible  with  un- 
usual ability,  with  a  high  degree  of  personal  charm, 
with  the  efficient  performance  of  work  and  discharge 
of  duties  outside  the  sphere  of  delusion,  has  been  re- 
peatedly and  abundantly  shown  and  is  a  matter  of 
everyday  experience  with  alienists. 

The  history  of  the  world  also  presents  many  ex- 
amples of  individuals  not  entirely  sane,  like  Joan  of 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      29 

Arc,  and  Luther,  who  were  able  greatly  to  influence — 
largely  through  their  profound  belief  in  themselves 
and  their  cause — the  course  of  human  events. 

One  of  the  best  illustrations  of  the  ''delirium  of 
grandeur"  with  'which  the  Kaiser  appears  to  be 
afllicted  (and  with  which  on  account  of  its  frequency 
in  ordinary  lunatics  all  medical  men  are  familiar)  is 
given  in  this  very  belief  in  his  Divine  vice-gerency  and 
in  his  constant  and  familiar  references  to  God  in  his 
speeches,  letters  and  telegrams. 

The  Dean  of  American  letters,  Mr.  William  D. 
Howells,  has  dealt  so  eloquently  with  this  phase — and 
other  phases — of  the  Kaiser's  character  (North 
American  Review,  October,  1914)  that  I  shall  let  him 
continue  this  answer  to  the  second  portion  of  Question 
1 — believing  that  the  Kaiser  represents  in  an  exag- 
gerated form  (due  probably  to  disease),  the  megalo- 
mania of  the  nation,  and  believing  also  that  what  Mr. 
Howells  writes  of  him  represents  with  equal  truth  the 
estimate  of  him  held  to-day  by  the  large  majority  of 
Americans. 

"As  early  as  August  22nd  the  censorship  of  war 
news  allowed  us  to  learn  that  'the  Kaiser  had  ordered 
the  Supreme  Council  of  the  Evangelical  Church 
throughout  Germany  to  include  the  following  prayer 
in  the  liturgy  at  all  public  services  during  the  war: 
'Almighty  and  merciful  God  of  the  armies,  we  be- 
seech in  humility  for  Thy  Almighty  aid  for  our  Ger- 
man fatherland.  Bless  the  entire  German  war  force. 
Lead  us  to  victory  and  give  us  Thy  grace  that  we  may 


30      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

show  ourselves  to  be  Christians  toward  our  enemies. 
As  well,  let  us  soon  arrive  at  peace  which  will  ever- 
lastingly safeguard  our  free  and  independent  Ger- 
many.' 

"This  carefully  worded  supplication  must  have 
been  instantly  rushed  to  the  Throne  of  Grace,  to  the 
Father  of  Mercies,  to  Him  without  whose  knowledge 
not  even  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground,  and  the  re- 
sponse might  seem  to  have  been  instant,  for  we  read 
that  on  the  25th  the  Kaiser  wired  his  daughter-in- 
law,  the  Crown  Princess : 

"  T  rejoice  with  thee  over  the  first  victory  of 
Wilhelm.  God  has  been  on  his  side  and  has  most  bril- 
liantly supported  him.  To  Him  be  thanks  and  honor. 
I  remit  to  Wilhelm  the  Iron  Cross  of  the  second  and 
first  class.  .  .  .  God  protect  and  succor  my  boys. 
Also  in  the  future  God  be  with  thee  and  all  wives. 

'(Signed)     Papa  Wilhelm.' 

"But  in  some  respects  this  was  apparently  asking 
too  much.  In  spite  of  the  flattering  recognition  of 
His  support  of  the  Crown  Prince,  He  seems  to  have 
thought  it  enough  to  be  only  with  the  Crown  Princess 
'in  the  future.'  He  evidently  could  not  be  bothered 
to  look  after  'all  wives,'  for  we  read  that  the  wives  of 
unarmed  peasants  and  citizens  were  driven,  with  their 
children,  from  their  homes  in  a  country  which  Papa 
Wilhelm  was  wasting  with  fire  and  sword  through  a 
violation  of  its  rights  as  a  neutral  nation  and  of  his 
own  word  solemnly  given,  and  went  wandering  beg- 
gared through  their  native  land.  Other  wives  were 
slain  at  their  hearthstones  by  Papa  Wilhelm's  artil- 
lery, or  torn  to  pieces  in  their  beds  by  bombs  dropped 
from  Papa  Wilhelm's  dirigibles  flying  over  sleeping 
towns. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      31 

"So  far  as  'all  wives'  were  concerned,  the  Helper 
of  the  widow  and  the  orphan  was  not  so  constant  as 
Papa  \\'ilhelm   desired,   though   Papa  Wilhelm  had 
especially  commended  them  to  His  care,     Yet  Papa 
Wilhelm  did  not  lose  heart,  for  in  a  telegram  of  the 
27th  we  find  him  declaring  from  his  headquarters  on 
the  Main,  'Confidence  in  the  irresistible  might  of  our 
heroic  army  and  unshakable  belief  in  the  help  of  a 
living  God,  together  with  the  consciousness  that  we 
are  fighting  for  a  worthy  cause,  should  give  us  faith 
in  an  early  deliver}^  of  Germany  from  its  enemies.' 
"It  may  be  that  the  Supreme  Being,  the  'living 
God'  as  the  first  of  living  men  here  handsomely  calls 
Him,  was  perhaps  not  really  so  very  hand-in-glove 
with  the  Kaiser.     It  may  be  that  He  did  not  'bril- 
liantly support'  the  Crown  Prince  in  battle,  and  that 
it  was  solely  'the  invincible  might  of  his  heroic  army' 
which  gave  the  Kaiser  early  victor>'.    For  Papa  Wil- 
helm had  been  training  them  in  their  work  of  mul- 
tiple murder  for  forty  years,  incessantly,  relentlessly, 
at  the  cost  of  the  best  years  of  their  youth,  of  their 
freedom,  of  whatever  makes  life  sweet  and  dear.    To 
perfect  the  pitiless  machine  into  which  he  turned  a 
kindly  people  he  spared  no  means  known  to  the  art  of 
the  oppressor;   he   sacrificed  to  this   end  truth  and 
honor  and  the  love  of  men ;  he  substituted  the  terror 
of  lese  majeste  for  patriotic  loyalty;  he  made  revenge 
and  hate  the  prime  motives  of  the  nation  which  he 
welded  into  an  adamantine  mass  to  be  hurled,  when 
the  time  came,  against  another  nation  which  he  had 
schooled  them,  in  the  uttermost  cruelty  of  fear,  to 
abhor.    In  this  work  he  signed  promises  which  trust- 
ing nations  took  for  treaties  with  all  the  sacred  and 
solemn   guarantees,   but  which  his   ministers   called 
'scraps  of  paper'  when  the  convenient  time  came.    He 


32      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

made  their  commanders  the  terror  of  the  men,  and  he 
perpetuated  among  the  officers  of  his  army  the  code 
of  the  duel ;  by  his  will  the  law  of  the  sword  became 
supreme  against  the  law  of  the  land  in  any  question 
between  soldiers  and  civilians.  He  turned  the  tide  of 
civilization  from  its  flow  toward  peace  and  good- 
will, and  drove  its  stream  back  among  the  morasses 
of  the  past,  where  it  was  choked  with  the  corpses  of 
the  immemorial  dead,  the  embers  of  their  homes,  and 
the  ruins  of  their  altars,  so  that  when  the  time  came  to 
destroy  a  peaceful  city  his  soldiers  were  as  j*eady  to 
do  his  will  as  they  were  to  drive  the  wedge  of  their 
bodies  through  the  enemy's  lines  and  to  fall  in  heaps 
that  stayed  their  advance. 

"There  is  no  means  of  telling  just  yet  what  the 
effect  of  his  prayers  has  been  with  the  Heavenly 
Father,  or  whether  in  the  event  they  will  avail  against 
the  prayers  of  the  Belgians,  the  French,  the  English, 
and  the  Russians,  beseeching  the  same  God  for  vic- 
tory against  him.  Who,  indeed,  always  excepting  the 
German  Emperor,  may  declare  what  dwells  in  the  will 
of  the  Almighty,  or  what  His  purpose  is?  Will  He 
continue  His  brilliant  support  of  the  Crown  Prince, 
or  will  He  lift  up  His  countenance  and  make  it  to 
shine  upon  the  peoples  who  have,  humanly  speaking, 
been  cruelly  outraged  in  all  that  is  dear  to  civilized 
men,  whose  lands  have  been  overrun  by  invading 
armies,  whose  cities  have  been  burned,  whose  fields 
have  been  laid  waste,  whose  wives  and  little  ones  have 
been  driven  beggars  into  the  wilderness  which  wanton 
invasion  has  made  of  their  country?  At  the  actual 
writing  it  seems  as  if  the  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth 
may  have  thought  twice  concerning  His  imperial 
protege,  and  ceased  to  'bless  the  whole  German  force.* 
Part  of  this  force  is  now  retracing  its  bleeding  steps, 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      33 

slowly  indeed,  and  perhaps  not  finally ;  its  retreat  may 
be  merely  the  recoil  of  the  wild  beast  for  another 
spring  upon  its  prey;  but  as  yet  it  does  not  seem  so, 
and  humanity  may  begin  to  breathe  again.  No  one 
except  the  Kaiser  may  guess  at  the  unfathomable 
counsels  of  the  Ancient  of  Days." 

It  seems  unnecessary  to  multiply  evidence  that 
the  Kaiser  has  a  form  of  megalomania  that  amounts  to 
disease,  or  that  he,  unfortunately,  in  this  respect,  rep- 
resents with  fair  accuracy,  the  present  frame  of  mind 
— probably  only  temporary — of  the  German  nation. 

But  I  shall  add  one  additional  bit  of  testimony, 
just  at  hand.  It  may  be  untrustworthy,  but  it  has  the 
earmarks  of  genuineness. 

An  order  issued  by  "Papa  Wilhelm"  to  his  troops 
in  East  Prussia  is  said  (10)  to  read  in  part  as  follows: 

"Thanks  to  the  valor  of  my  heroes,  France  has 
been  severely  punished.  Belgium,  which  interfered 
with  our  attack,  has  been  added  to  the  glorious  prov- 
inces of  Germany.  From  the  course  of  military 
events  you  know  that  the  punitive  expedition  into 
Russia  has  also  been  a  brilliant  success. 

"My  heroes,  the  hour  of  trial  has  now  come  for 
you  and  for  the  whole  of  Germany.  If  Germany  is 
dear  to  you— if  your  families  are  dear  to  you — if  your 
culture,  your  faith,  your  nation,  your  Emperor,  are 
dear  to  you,  you  will  ofifer  the  enemy  worthy  re- 
sistance." 

I  ask  the  reader  to  note  the  crescendo — from 
"Germany"    through    "families,"    "culture,"    "faith," 


34      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

and  the  "nation"  up  to  the  "Emperor !"  Also  the  an- 
nounced addition  of  Belgium  to  the  "glorious  prov- 
inces of  Germany." 

The  Kaiser  may  not  have  written  this,  but,  if  he 
didn't,  the  author  takes  rank  with  Chatterton.  There 
is  a  "condensed  novel"  in  those  paragraphs  worthy  of 
Bret  Harte  or  Leacock. 

But,  after  all,  the  question  of  the  exact  mental 
condition  of  the  Kaiser  is  not  of  fundamental  impor- 
tance. His  power  is  unquestioned,  his  leadership  in- 
disputable. He  stands  to-day  before  the  world. as  the 
embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  the  school  of  the  Bern- 
hardis  and  Treitschkes.  He  is  the  apotheosis  of  the 
Miinsterberg  idea  of  an  Emperor  as  "the  symbol  of 
the  State." 

The  world  believes  that  had  he  so  willed  this  war 
would  not  have  occurred.  Whether  his  will  to  war 
was — however  indefensible  and  brutal — a  sanely  rea- 
soned determination,  or  the  irresistible  impulse  of  a 
mental  defective  the  world  may  never  know.  As  I 
have  said,  noiv  it  is  not  important. 


II 

What  is  the  evidence  as  to  the  ez'ents  immediately 
leading  up  to  the  zvar  in  their  relation  to  the  culpability 
of  Germany f 

A.  As  I  was  trying-  to  formulate  my  ideas  in 
reply  to  this  question,  there  appeared  in  the  public 
press  (11)  a  most  illuminating  and  convincing  article 
from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  American 
Bar,  Mr.  James  M.  Beck.  He  propounds  at  the  outset 
three  questions:  Was  Austria  justified  in  declaring 
war  against  Servia?  Was  Germany  justified  in  de- 
claring war  against  Russia  and  France?  Was  Eng- 
land justified  in  declaring  war  against. Germany? 

He  reviews  in  a  masterly  manner  all  the  official 
and  documentary  evidence  now  before  the  world,  and 
assumes  that  it  is  to  be  presented  to  a  "Supreme  Court 
of  Civilization"  for  consideration  and  judgment. 

In  reply  to  the  last  of  these  questions  he  cites  the 
solemn  treaty  of  1839,  whereby  Prussia,  France,  Eng- 
land, Austria  and  Russia  "became  the  guarantors"  of 
the  "perpetual  neutrality"  of  Belgium,  which  treaty 
was  reaffirmed  by  Count  Bismarck,  then  Chancellor 
of  the  German  Empire,  on  July  22,  1870,  and  even 
more  recently  (1913)  by  the  German  Secretary  of 
State,  who  said  in  the  Reichstag: 

"The  neutrality  of  Belgium  is  determined  by 
international  conventions,  and  Germany  is  resolved 
to  respect  these  conventions." 

(35) 


36      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

To  confirm  this  solemn  assurance,  the  Minister 
of  War  added  in  the  same  debate  : 

"Belgium  does  not  play  any  part  in  the  justifica- 
tion of  the  German  scheme  of  military  reorganization. 
The  scheme  is  justified  by  the  position  of  matters  in 
the  East.  Germany  will  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
Belgium  neutrality  is  guaranteed  by  international 
treaties." 

A  year  later,  on  July  31,  1914,  Herr  von  Buelow, 
the  German  Minister  at  Brussels,  assured  the  Belgian 
Department  of  State  that  he  knew  of  a  declaration 
which  the  German  Chancellor  had  made  in  1911  to 
the  effect  "that  Germany  had  no  intention  of  violat- 
ing our  (Belgium's)  neutrality,"  and  "that  he  was  cer- 
tain that  the  sentiments  to  which  expression  was 
given  at  that  time  had  not  changed."  (See  Belgian 
"Gray  Book,"  Nos.  11  and  12.) 

Mr.  Beck  says  it  seems  unnecessary  to  discuss  the 
wanton  disregard  of  these  solemn  obligations  and 
protestations,  when  the  present  Chancellor  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  in  his  speech  to  the  Reichstag  and  to  the 
world  on  August  4,  1914,  frankly  admitted  that  the 
action  of  the  German  military  machine  in  invading 
Belgium  was  a  wrong.     He  said: 

"We  are  now  in  a  state  of  necessity,  and  neces- 
sity knows  no  law.  Our  troops  have  occupied  Luxem- 
burg and  perhaps  are  already  on  Belgian  soil.  Gen- 
tlemen, that  is  contrary  to  the  dictates  of  international 
law.     .     .     .     The  wrong,  I  speak  openly — that  we 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      37 

are  committing  we  will  endeavor  to  make  good  as 
soon  as  our  military  goal  has  been  reached.  Any- 
body who  is  threatened  as  we  are  threatened,  and  is 
fighting  for  his  highest  possessions,  can  only  have  one 
thought — hozv  he  is  to  hack  his  zvay  through." 

Mr.  Beck  might  have  added  that  by  this  same 
treaty  Belgium  had  pledged  herself  to  resist  any  vio- 
lation of  her  neutrality,  and  that  it  was  not  only  her 
right  but  her  duty  to  bar  the  way  to  the  march  of 
Germany's  legions  across  the  land.  Mr.  Beck  con- 
tinues as  to  the  German  Chancellor's  ''defence"  by 
saying  that  it  is  not  even  a  plea  of  confession  and 
avoidance.  It  is  a  plea  of  "Guilty"  at  the  bar  of  the 
world.  It  has  one  merit — that  it  does  not  add  to  the 
crime  the  aggravation  of  hypocrisy.  It  virtually  rests 
the  case  of  Germany  upon  the  Gospel  of  Treitschke 
and  Bernhardi,  which  was  taught  far  more  effectively 
by  Machiavelli  in  his  treatise,  'The  Prince,"  wherein 
he  glorified  the  policy  of  Cesare  Borgia  in  trampling 
the  weaker  States  of  Italy  under  foot  by  ruthless  ter- 
rorism, unbridled  ferocity  and  the  basest  deception. 
The  wanton  destruction  of  Belgium  is  simply  Borgia- 
ism  amplified  ten  thousand  fold  by  the  mechanical  re- 
sources of  modern  war. 

As  to  this  point,  Mr.  Beck  concludes  that  unless 
our  boasted  civilization  is  the  thinnest  veneering  of 
barbarism ;  unless  the  law  of  the  world  is  in  fact  only 
the  ethics  of  the  rifle  and  the  conscience  of  the  can- 
non;   unless  mankind  after  uncounted  centuries  has 


38      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

made  no  real  advance  in  political  morality  beyond  that 
of  the  cave  dweller,  then^this  answer  of  Germany  fails 
to  show  a  "decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind." 
Germany's  contention  that  a  treaty  of  peace  is  "a 
scrap  of  paper,"  to  be  disregarded  at  will  when  re- 
quired by  the  selfish  interests  of  one  contracting  party, 
is  the  negation  of  all  that  civilization  stands  for. 

"Belgium  has  been  crucified  in  the  face  of  the 
world.  Its  innocence  of  any  offence,  until  it  was 
attacked,  is  too  clear  for  argument.  Its  voluntary 
immolation  to  preserve  its  solemn  guarantee  of  neu- 
trality will  'plead  like  angels,  trumpet-tongued, 
against  the  deep  damnation  of  its  taking  off.'  On 
that  issue  the  Supreme  Court  could  have  no  ground 
for  doubt  or  hesitation.  Its  judgment  would  be 
speedy  and  inexorable." 

Mr.  Beck  then  goes  on  to  discuss  the  evidence 
ofifered  to  the  public  in  the  British  and  German  "White 
Papers"  and  the  "Russian  Orange  Paper,"  and  asks 
what  verdict  an  impartial  and  dispassionate  court 
would  render  upon  the  issues  thus  raised  and  the  evi- 
dence thus  submitted.     He  says: 

"Primarily  such  a  court  would  be  deeply  im- 
pressed not  only  by  what  the  record  as  thus  made  up 
discloses,  hut  also  by  the  significant  omissions  of 
documents  known  to  be  in  existence. 

"The  official  defence  of  England  and  Russia  does 
not  apparently  show  any  failure  on  the  part  of  either 
to  submit  all  of  the  documents  in  their  possession, 
but  the  German  'White  Paper"  on  its  face  discloses 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      39 

the  suppression  of  documents  of  vital  importance, 
while  Austria  has  as  yet  failed  to  submit  any  of  the 
documentary  evidence  in  its  possession. 

"We  know  from  the  German  'White  Paper' — 
even  if  we  did  not  conclude  as  a  matter  of  irresist- 
ible inference— that  many  important  communications 
passed  in  this  crisis  between  Germany  and  Austria, 
and  it  is  probable  that  some  communications  must 
also  have  passed  between  those  two  countries  and 
Italy.  Italy,  despite  its  embarrassing  position,  owes 
to  the  world  the  duty  of  a  full  disclosure.  What  such 
disclosure  would  probably  show  is  indicated  by  her 
deliberate  conclusion  that  her  allies  had  commenced 
an  aggressive  war,  which  released  her  from  any  ob- 
ligation under  the  Triple  Alliance." 

His  conclusion  as  to  this  point  is  that  until  Ger- 
many is  willing  to  put  the  most  important  documents 
in  its  possession  in  evidence,  it  must  not  be  surprised 
that  the  world,  remembering  Bismarck's  garbling  of 
the  Ems  dispatch,  which  precipitated  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war,  will  be  incredulous  as  to  the  sincerity 
of  Germany's  mediatory  efforts. 

He  then  reviews  the  entire  diplomatic  corre- 
spondence, as  published,  repeatedly  calling  attention 
to  the  absence  of  important  documents  from  the  Ger- 
man and  Austrian  records.  He  finds  that  those  two 
nations  were  guilty  not  only  of  concealment  or  sup- 
pression of  portions  of  the  record,  while  Germany  was 
pretending  to  lay  its  case  unreservedly  before  the 
world,  but  that  they  were  "diplomatic  pettifoggers" 
who  took  a  "colossal  snap  judgment" ;   that  the  Ger- 


40      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

man  Secretary  of  State  was  guilty  of  a  "plain  eva- 
sion," the  German  Imperial  Chancellor  of  a  "pitiful 
and  insincere  quibble,"  of  "hypocrisy,"  of  "arro- 
gance" and  "unreasonableness."  Of  one  contention 
of  the  German  Secretary  of  State,  that  Austria  might 
act  in  disregard  of  Germany's  wish  in  a  matter  of 
common  concern,  he  says : 

"This  strains  human  credulity  to  the  breaking 
point.  Did  the  German  Secretary  of  State  keep  a 
straight  face  when  he  uttered  this  sardonic  pleas- 
antry? It  may  be  the  duty  of  a  diplomat  to  lie  on 
occasion,  but  is  it  ever  necessary  to  utter  such  a  stu- 
pid falsehood?  The  German  Secretary  of  State  sar- 
donically added  in  the  same  conversation  that  he  was 
not  sure  that  the  effort  for  peace  had  not  hastened  the 
declaration  of  war,  as  though  the  declaration  of  war 
against  Servia  had  not  been  planned  and  expected 
from  the  first." 


that- 


Mr.  Beck  does  not  fail  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 


"In  reaching  its  conclusion  our  imaginary  court 
would  pay  little  attention  to  mere  professions  of  a 
desire  for  peace.      ,      .      ." 

"No  war  in  modem  times  has  been  begun  with- 
out the  aggressor  pretending  that  his  nation  wished 
nothing  but  peace,  and  invoking  Divine  aid  for  its 
murderous  poHcy.  To  paraphrase  the  words  of  Lady 
Teazle  on  a  noted  occasion  when  Sir  Joseph  Surface 
talked  much  of  'honor,'  it  might  be  as  well  in  such 
instances  to  leave  the  name  of  God  out  of  the  ques- 
tion." 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      41 

The  Judgment  of  the  Court  he  says  would  be  un- 
hesitatingly as  follows: 

"1.  That  Germany  and  Austria  in  a  time  of 
profound  peace  secretly  concerted  together  to  impose 
their  will  upon  Europe  and  upon  Servia  in  a  matter 
affecting  the  balance  of  power  in  Europe.  Whether 
in  so  doing  they  intended  to  precipitate  a  European 
war  to  determine  the  mastery  of  Europe  is  not  satis- 
factorily established,  although  their  whole  course  of 
conduct  suggests  this  as  a  possibility.  They  made 
war  almost  inevitable  by  (a)  issuing  an  ultimatum 
that  was  grossly  unreasonable  and  disproportionate  to 
any  grievance  that  Austria  had  and  (b)  in  giving  to 
Servia,  and  Europe,  insufficient  time  to  consider  the 
rights  and  obligations  of  all  interested  nations. 

"2.  That  Germany  had  at  all  times  the  power 
to  compel  Austria  to  preserve  a  reasonable  and  con- 
ciliatory course,  but  at  no  time  effectively  exerted 
that  influence.  On  the  contrary,  she  certainly  abetted, 
and  possibly  instigated,  Austria  in  its  unreasonable 
course. 

"3.  That  England,  France,  Italy  and  Russia  at 
all  times  sincerely  worked  for  peace,  and  for  this 
purpose  not  only  overlooked  the  original  misconduct 
of  Austria,  but  made  every  reasonable  concession  in 
the  hope  of  preserving  peace. 

"4.  That  Austria,  having  mobilized  its  army, 
Russia  was  reasonably  justified  in  mobilizing  its 
forces.  Such  act  of  mobilization  was  the  right  of  any 
sovereign  State,  and  as  long  as  the  Russian  armies 
did  not  cross  the  border  or  take  any  aggressive  action 
no  other  nation  had  any  just  right  to  complain,  each 
having  the  same  right  to  make  similar  preparations. 


42      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"5.  That  Germany,  in  abruptly  declaring  war 
against  Russia  for  failure  to  demobilize  when  the 
other  Powers  had  offered  to  make  any  reasonable 
concession  and  peace  parleys  were  still  in  progress, 
precipitated  the  war." 

He  adds  that — 

"The  German  nation  has  been  plunged  into  this 
abyss  by  its  scheming  statesmen  and  its  self-centred 
and  highly  neurotic  Kaiser,  who  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury sincerely  believes  that  he  is  the  proxy  of  Al- 
mighty God  on  earth,  and  therefore  infallible." 

Since  his  article  appeared,  another  labored  de- 
fence of  Germany  has  been  sent  to  America,  and, 
fathered  by  Dr.  Bernhard  Dernburg,  at  one  time  the 
German  Colonial  Secretary,  and  said  to  be  "now  Ger- 
many's most  conspicuous  advocate  in  the  United 
States,"  has  been  given  to  the  American  press.  It 
still  further  illustrates  many  of  the  points  already 
made.  For  example,  it  speaks  again  of  the  mythical 
French  attack  upon  Germany  across  Belgium,  resting 
the  assertion  ''upon  absolutely  unimpeachable  infor- 
mation," which  it  does  not  give.  Such  attempts  as 
have  been  made  to  sustain  this  eleventh-hour  defence 
are,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  like  many  of  those  in  the 
German  "White  Paper,"  based  on  similarly  vague  and 
unsupported  statements.  The  whole  effort  in  this  last 
lengthy  and  involved  document  is  to  try  to  show  that 
Russia   is   "responsible   for   the  war,"   that   England 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      43 

"was  fully  cognizant  of  this  fact,"  and  that  the  lat- 
ter's  "claim  that  she  entered  this  war  solely  as  the 
protector  of  small  nations  is  a  fable." 

So  far  as  I  know,  no  such  claim  has  been  made 
by  England.  The  word  "solely"  is  interpolated  to 
make  the  German  case  stronger.  In  fact,  in  the  reply 
by  the  English  professors  and  men  of  science  to  the 
learned  men  of  Germany  responsible  for  "The  Truth 
About  Germany"  (page  S7),  the  former  say  with 
emphasis : 

"Great  Britain,  together  with  France,  Russia, 
Prussia  and  Austria,  had  solemnly  guaranteed  the 
neutrality  of  Belgium.  In  the  preservation  of  this 
neutrality  our  deepest  sentiments  and  our  most  vital 
interests  are  alike  involved.  Its  violation  would  not 
only  shatter  the  independence  of  Belgium  itself:  it 
would  undermine  the  whole  basis  which  renders  pos- 
sible the  neutrality  of  any  State  and  the  very  exist- 
ence of  such  States  as  are  much  weaker  than  their 
neighbors.  We  acted  in  ipi4  just  as  we  acted  in 
1870." 

But  if  the  claim  had  been  made,  it  would  have  had 
greater  inherent  probability  and  would  be  far  more 
strongly  upheld  and  substantiated  by  the  admitted 
facts  than  is  this  last  absurd  effort  to  represent  Ger- 
many as  resisting  "with  quiet  politeness"  a  demand, 
"as  a  price  of  British  neutrality"  to  consent  to  her  own 
"humiliation"  and  "retirement  from  the  position  of  a 
Great  Power." 


44      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

Is  it  likely  that  a  nation — or  two  nations — obvi- 
ously, as  events  have  shown,  unprepared  for  immediate 
war  would  have  made  such  a  demand  upon  the  great- 
est military  Power  the  world  has  ever  seen,  at  a  time 
when,  as  events  have  also  shown,  she  was  ready  to 
the  last  apparently  petty  detail  to  challenge,  if  need 
be,  United  Europe?  Does  not  every  intelligent  person 
in  the  world  know  that  her  early  successes,  on  the 
offensive,  were  due  to  this  very  preparedness,  which 
her  opponents  could  at  the  time  but  feebly  imitate? 
And  since  then,  in  her  remarkable  defensive  campaign, 
was  not  her  temporary  safety  assured  by  these  same 
preparations,  so  complete  last  August  that  it  is  scarcely 
conceivable  that  they  could  have  been  bettered  by  or 
through  delay  ? 

But  even  in  this  paper  the  same  clumsy  confusion 
between  "Might"  and  "Right"  which  has  put  Ger- 
many on  the  defensive  before  the  civilized  world  is 
once  more  shown,  I  wish  I  had  space  to  quote  in  full 
that  part  of  this  "Review  of  Official  War-Papers." 
It  speaks  of  the  "heavy  heart"  with  which  Germany, 
"following  the  law  of  self-preservation,"  "decided  to 
violate  the  neutrality  of  Belgium."  It  says  that  after 
England  had  informed  the  Belgians — as  by  solemn 
contract  and  by  every  law  of  honor  and  decency  she 
was  bound  to  do — that  she  would  support  them  in  case 
"Germany  applied  pressure  to  induce  them  to  depart 
from  neutrality" — England's  own  words — "Belgian 
fanaticism  broke  loose  against  Germany." 

Can  Americans  read  with  any  patience  the  Ger- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      45 

man  expressions  of  ex  post  facto  regret — the  hypo- 
critical assumption  that  they  are  discharging  a  sacred 
duty  ? 

"By  nobody,"  says  the  Kolnische  Zeitimg  (close 
to  the  Berlin  authorities),  "is  the  fate  of  Belgium, 
the  burning  down  of  every  building,  the  destruction 
of  Louvain,  so  deeply  deplored  as  by  the  German  peo- 
ple and  our  brave  troops,  who  felt  bound  to  carry 
out  to  the  bitter  end  the  chastisement  they  were  com- 
pelled to  inflict." 


Every  burglar  who,  caught  red-handed  and  re- 
sisted, added  murder  to  his  other  crimes,  might  with 
equal  force  "deeply  deplore"  the  "necessity"  that 
"compelled"  him  to  "inflict  chastisement." 

It  is  nauseating. 

And  through  it  all  outcrops  at  all  sorts  of  mal- 
apropos times  their  insufferable  self-appreciation. 

"We,  however,"  say  the  Berlin  Tageszeitung,  "do 
not  need  to  regard  the  public  opinion  of  the  world. 
In  the  last  instance  the  German  people,  united  with 
the  Emperor,  are  alone  competent  to  decide  the  cor- 
rectness of  Germany's  course." 

The  plea  of  "necessity"  constantly  recurs  in  the 
German  apologiae,  and  was  symbolized  and  siunmar- 
ized  by  Gerhart  Hauptmann,  the  German  dramatist,  in 
his  reply  to  an  appeal  from  the  Frenchman,  Romain 
Rolland,  author  of  "Jean  Christophe": 


46      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"Our  jealous  enemies  forged  an  iron  ring  around 
our  breast  and  we  knew  our  breast  had  to  expand, 
that  it  had  to  split  asunder  this  ring,  or  else  we  had 
to  cease  breathing." 


Translated  into  plain  English,  dear  reader,  this 
is  as  if  your  neighbor  Schmidt,  his  family  having 
somewhat  outgrown  the  modest  residence  in  which  he 
began  housekeeping,  had  called  God  to  witness  that 
in  the  Holy  name  of  Family  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  take  your  house  and  that  of  his  other  neighbor 
Claretie  (and  some  of  your  outlying  farms),  and  that 
it  was  also  necessary  (under  God's  guidance)  to  get 
at  you  through  the  property  of  a  third  neighbor, 
Vandervelde,  which  property,  as  the  latter  objected 
and  resisted,  it  was  further  necessary  to  burn  and  de- 
stroy together  with  many  of  Vandervelde's  children 
and  his  wife. 

Chesterton  has  well  summed  up  the  German 
ethics.  They  have  been  told  by  their  politicians  that 
all  arrangements  dissolve  before  ''necessity."  That 
is  the  importance  of  the  German  Chancellor's  phrase, 
excusing  and  explaining  the  violation  of  the  neutrality 
of  Belgium:  "We  are  now  in  a  state  of  necessity  and 
necessity  knows  no  law."  He  did  not  allege  some  spe- 
cial excuse  in  the  case  of  Belgium,  which  might  make 
it  an  exception  to  the  rule.  He  distinctly  argued,  as  on 
a  principle  applicable  to  other  cases,  that  victory  was 
a  necessity  and  honor  was  a  scrap  of  paper. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      47 

"The  Prussians  had  made  a  new  discovery," 
says  Chesterton,  "in  international  politics — that  it 
may  often  be  convenient  to  make  a  promise  and  yet 
curiously  inconvenient  to  keep  it.  .  .  .  They, 
therefore,  promised  England  a  promise  on  condition 
that  she  broke  a  promise  and  on  the  implied  condition 
that  the  new  promise  might  be  broken  as  easily  as 
the  old  one." 

This,  after  all,  well  summarizes  an  important  part 
of  the  German  "diplomacy." 

To  return  to  Mr.  Beck's  paper,  I  beg  to  say 
finally  that  I  have  quoted  some  of  his  conclusions  with- 
out his  arguments,  because,  while  the  latter  were  in- 
capable of  satisfactory  condensation,  within  my  limits, 
I  wanted  to  call  particular  attention  to  the  impression 
made  on  the  highly  trained  mind  of  one  representative 
American  by  the  documents  on  which  the  German  and 
German-American  special  pleaders  largely  rest  their 
case. 


Ill 

What  has  been  the  attitude  of  the  German  apolo- 
gists in  relation  to  Belgium  since  the  violation  of  neu- 
trality f 

A.  Professor  Weber,  of  Kiel,  said  to  be  "very 
close  to  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia  and  the  Hohenzollern 
family,"  writes  to  an  American  friend  ( 12) : 

"It  has  been  proved  with  certainty  that  Belgium 
had  already  entered  into  agreements  with  France 
long  before  the  war  to  permit  the  passage  of  hostile 
troops  through  Belgium,  perhaps  even  to  take  the 
field  with  them  against  us. 

"By  this  means  Belgium  had  already  surrendered 
her  neutrality  and  had  actually  taken  a  stand  with 
our  enemies.  That  we  with  one  bold  blow  should 
dare  to  take  the  Belgium  fortress  is,  therefore,  easy  to 
understand.  We  have  been  far  too  lenient  in  that  we 
wished  to  give  back  to  the  Belgians  their  land  un- 
harmed after  the  fall  of  Liege. 

"Since  the  Belgians  were  so  deceived  as  not  to 
accept  this  magnanimous  offer,  they  must  bitterly 
atone  for  it." 

As  usual,  nothing  worthy  of  being  called  "proof" 
has  been  adduced  in  support  of  this  statement  and  ad- 
miration for  the  "magnanimity"  which  led  Germany 
to  offer  to  give  back  to  the  Belgians  their  own  land 
must  be  withheld. 

(48) 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      49 

Dr.  Herman  Hilprecht  says  that  the  Belgian  Gov- 
ernment "stubbornly  declined  the  German  proposi- 
tion"— to  allow  the  latter  to  violate  the  treaty  of  neu- 
trality— and  then  attempts  to  justify  fully  and  without 
reservation  the  subsequent  over-running  of  Belgium 
and  the  pillage  and  destruction  of  Louvain.  (13) 

Much  precisely  similar  testimony  might  be  ad- 
duced, chiefly  from  German-American  sources,  and 
would  amply  suffice  to  show  the  mistake  of  the  Ameri- 
can writer  who  said  ( 14) : 

"The  government  of  Germany  has  announced 
that  'the  occupation  of  Belgium  is  now  virtuaUy  com- 
plete';  and  the  people  of  the  empire  are  celebrating 
the  achievement  with  pride  and  exultation.  Thus  is 
closed  one  of  the  bloodiest  chapters  in  the  war — and 
one  of  the  darkest  chapters  in  the  records  of  inter- 
national dishonor. 

"No  matter  what  horrors  may  await  the  world  in 
the  unfolding  of  the  dreadful  conflict,  none  can  ex- 
ceed in  poignant  tragedy  the  fate  of  this  devoted  peo- 
ple. From  the  time  of  Caesar  the  bravery  and  the 
dauntless  independence  of  the  Belgians  have  been 
celebrated  by  historians  and  sung  by  poets.  And 
now  these  high  qualities  have  inspired  a  supreme 
demonstration  of  heroism  and  sacrifice  which  makes 
all  humanity  the  debtor  of  the  martyred  nation. 

"This  is  the  one  phase  of  the  war  which  can  be 
discussed  almost  without  raising  controversy.  Upon 
the  issues  of  Prussian  policy,  French  hatred,  British 
jealousy  and  Russian  plotting,  advocates  on  either 
side  wax  furiously  eloquent  and  raise  questions  which 
their  opponents  are  taxed  to  answer. 


50      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"But  upon  the  hideous  wrong  perpetrated  upon 
Belgium  the  most  ruthless  devotee  of  militarism,  the 
most  fanatical  exponent  of  imperialistic  destiny  and 
the  rights  of  'culture,'  must  take  refuge  in  silence  or 
falter  out  feeble  extenuation.  The  facts  of  history, 
the  records  of  diplomacy  and  the  principles  of  inter- 
national justice  converge  here  to  denounce  an  act 
unparalleled  in  its  cruelty  and  perfidy." 

Unfortunately,  since  this  was  written,  the  imperi- 
alistic and  "cultured"  fanatics  have  shown  that  they 
have  no  idea  of  taking  refuge  in  silence,  but  fatuously 
beHeve  that  they  can  impose  upon  a  thinking  and  rea- 
soning world  a  view  that  it  has  already  contemptuously 
and  with  practical  unanimity  rejected. 

The  same  writer  gives  a  brief  outline  of  the  case 
(from  a  slightly  different  standpoint  from  that  of  Mr. 
Beck),  brings  it  down  to  date,  and  continues : 

"This  [the  treaty  of  1839,  etc.,  see  p.  35]  was 
the  record  upon  which  Belgium  stood  when  the 
troops  of  the  Kaiser  crossed  her  frontiers  on  August 
2  last.  The  German  government,  having  already  vio- 
lated the  territory  of  Luxemburg,  demanded  passage 
for  its  forces  through  the  country  whose  integrity  it 
was  sworn  to  honor  and  protect.  With  unblushing 
effrontery  it  called  this  demand  a  request  for  'friendly 
neutrality,'  and  declared  that  in  case  of  opposition 
Germany  would  'consider  Belgium  as  an  enemy.' 

"There  was  here  a  double  crime.  Germany  not 
only  foreswore  her  own  covenant,  but  undertook  to 
penalize  Belgium  for  observing  that  country's  solemn 
obligation ;  for,  of  course,  consent  by  Belgium  to  the 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      51 

free  passage  of  the  Kaiser's  forces  would  have  been 
a  repudiation  of  the  treaty  by  Belgium  and  tanta- 
mount to  an  act  of  war  against  France. 

"Apologists  for  the  invasion  have  attempted  to 
set  up  two  defences.  The  first  is  that  France  was 
preparing  to  violate  the  treaty,  and  that  Germany 
simply  forestalled  her.  Fortunately,  there  are  records 
which  utterly  disprove  this  pretence.  After  Ger- 
many's ultimatum,  France  offered  the  services  of  five 
army  corps  to  Belgium  to  defend  her  neutrality.  The 
answer  was : 

"  'We  are  sincerely  grateful  to  the  French  gov- 
ernment for  offering  eventual  support.  In  the  actual 
circumstances,  however,  we  do  not  propose  to  appeal 
to  the  guarantee  of  the  Powers.  The  Belgian  gov- 
ernment will  decide  later  on  the  action  which  they 
may  think  it  necessary  to  take.' 

"Belgium  preferred  to  make  her  first  appeal  to 
Germany's  sense  of  honor,  and,  when  that  failed,  to 
the  heroic  resistance  of  a  wronged  people.  And 
France  was  so  ill-prepared  for  the  invasion  which 
Germany  says  she  plotted  that  ten  days  elapsed  be- 
fore she  had  her  forces  in  the  neutral  territory. 

"The  second  excuse  offered  in  ex  post  facto 
palliation  of  the  offense  is  that  in  the  Belgian  archives 
Germany  has  found  dispatches  showing  that  in  1906 
the  British  military  attache  and  the  Belgian  general 
staff  discussed  tentatively  plans  for  landing  a  British 
force  to  defend  Belgian  neutrality  if  it  were  attacked. 
It  shows  the  desperate  nature  of  the  German  case 
when  this  incident  is  cited  to  justify  a  brutal  invasion. 
"The  arrangement  for  giving  help  to  Belgium,  if 
needed,  was  discussed  at  the  time  Germany  had  thrust 
herself  to  the  verge  of  war  with  France  over  Mo- 
rocco; and  the  proposal  of  Great  Britain  to  defend 


52      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

the  neutrality  of  Belgium,  as  she  was  bound  to  do, 
was  as  creditable  as  Germany's  violation  of  that  neu- 
trality was  dishonorable. 

"All  the  eloquence  and  sophistries  of  the  pro- 
fessors, poets,  and  psychologists  advocating  the  Ger- 
man cause  cannot  remove  the  black  stain  of  this  deed. 
The  facts  are  irrefutable,  and  the  proof  of  guilt 
inexorable." 


It  seems  not  worth  while  further  to  elaborate  the 
evidence  as  to  the  criminal  and  altogether  indefensible 
position  in  which  Germany  finds  herself  in  regard  to 
Belgium.  She  has  forfeited  the  respect  of  the  civil- 
ized world.  Her  "promises"  and  "pledges"  and 
"guarantees"  will,  as  long  as  the  present  ruling  class 
is  in  power,  be  regarded  with  contempt  or  derision  by 
other  nations.  So  far  as  the  Belgian  question  relates 
to  America,  however,  I  have  nowhere  seen  the  issue 
better  expressed  than  by  Mr.  Joseph  C.  Fraley,  of 
Philadelphia,  who,  in  a  brochure  entitled  "How  and 
Why  a  War  Lord  Wages  War"  (which  all  Ameri- 
cans should  read),  says: 

"We  know  that  the  one  hope  of  stopping  wars, 
is  to  supply  a  w^orld  wide  sanction  for  the  support 
of  international  laAvs  and  morals.  We  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  reasons  which  led  certain  powers  to 
engage  that  Belgian  territory  should  be  neutral  in 
time  of  war.  We  have  ever}^thing  to  do  with  this 
particular  instance  of  treaty  breaking,  in  that  it  con- 
stitutes a  new  departure,  a  crime  against  all  neu- 
trals.    Treaties  made   for  peace  conditions  are  ob- 


• 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      53 

viously  liable  to  be  broken  in  war,  but  a  treaty  made 
with  special  reference  to  war,  belongs  to  that  class 
of  obligations  whose  infringement  is  like  cheating  at 
cards.    The  offender  gets  no  second  chance." 

And  yet  it  takes  a  German-American  (Jastrow) 
to  say  that  the  historian  of  the  future  will,  in  analyzing 
the  causes  of  the  war,  regard  the  neutrality  of  Bel- 
gium "  as  a  very  minor  factor,  perhaps  entirely  neg- 
ligible" ! 


IV 

Is  there  any  evidence  which  tends  to  show  why  the 
present  time  was  selected  by  Germany  to  precipitate 
the  war? 

A.  Professor  Usher,  the  author  of  "Pan  Ger- 
manism" (where  much  interesting  matter  corrobora- 
tive of  the  statements  of  Emil  Reich,  as  to  Germany's 
megalomania,  may  be  found  presented  in  a  more  dig- 
nified way),  has  best  answered  this  question  in  an 
article  on  "The  Reasons  Behind  the  War."  (15) 

In  the  first  place,  Austria  for  centuries  has 
dreamed  of  dominating  southeastern  Europe,  of  rul- 
ing the  Balkans,  of  possessing  a  seacoast  on  the  Adri- 
atic and  yEgean.  Only  the  control  of  Servia  can  give 
her  fully  and  unreservedly  what  she  desires.  More- 
over, under  Servia's  leadership,  once  she  had  recov- 
ered from  her  great  losses  in  men  and  resources  dur- 
ing the  Balkan  wars,  a  strong  Slav  state  might  have 
been  established  in  control  of  all  Austria's  present  ap- 
proaches to  the  Adriatic.  Her  motives  seem  plain, 
and  she  was  in  precisely  the  position,  after  the  mur- 
der of  the  Arch-Duke  Ferdinand,  to  serve  as  a  cat's- 
paw  for  her  "ally" — and  master.  But  why  did  the 
latter  push  her  relentlessly  into  war  at  this  time,  when 
ample  reparation  was  offered  and  further  amends  were 
easily  procurable,  as  the  evidence  shows  beyond  all 

(54) 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      55 

question?  The  Anglo-Irish  difficulties,  the  Canadian- 
Hindu  troubles,  the  sensational  disclosures  in  the 
French  Chamber  as  to  the  bad  condition  of  the  army, 
the  alleged  deficiencies  in  the  French  aeroplane  squad- 
rons, the  only  partial  recovery  of  Russia  from  the 
effects  of  the  Japanese  war,  the  exhaustion  of  the 
Balkan  States  themselves  from  their  recent  wars,  even 
the  preoccupation  of  the  United  States  with  troubles 
in  Mexico,  all  seemed  to  preclude  the  chance  of  a  gen- 
eral interference. 

Professor  Usher  continues: 

"If  such  interference  took  place  and  a  general 
European  war  resulted,  there  had  not  been  in  twenty- 
years  anything  like  as  favorable  an  opportunity  for 
the  Triple  Alliance  or  one  as  disadvantageous  for 
the  Triple  Entente.  The  stake  was  so  immense,  the 
results  of  success  would  be  so  stupendous,  so  out  of 
proportion,  in  the  case  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  with 
what  they  might  lose,  that  the  issue  of  war  might  even 
be  courted  with  some  assurance.     .     .     . 

"The    schemes    of    the    Pan-Germanists    indeed 

reach  to  the  creation  of  a  vast  confederation  of  states. 

.     reaching  'from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Persian 

Gulf,  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Mediterranean,'  as  one 

of  their  slogans  has  it.     .     .     . 

"Of  this  great  scheme  (supposing  it  to  be,  as 
many  claim,  the  veritable  secret  policy  of  the  Triple 
Alliance)  the  undisputed  possession  of  the  Balkans 
by  the  Triple  Alliance  is  the  most  important  single 
factor.     .     .     . 

"As  to  a  general  assault  upon  the  Triple  Entente, 
the    Triple    Alliance    has    long    seen    two    obvious 


56      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

methods,  both  in  the  opinion  of  many,  likely  to  be  suc- 
cessful ;  the  one,  a  long  waiting  game  where  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  population  in  Germany,  Austria,  and 
Italy,  and  the  decline  of  the  rate  of  growth  in  France, 
England,  and  Russia,  would  in  time  give  the  Alliance 
a  real  preponderance  in  numbers;  the  other,  a  short 
quick  blow  at  some  moment  when  the  Triple  Alliance 
could  bring  all  its  strength  to  bear  and  when  the 
Triple  Entente  could  not.  The  former  meant,  not 
improbably,  many  years  of  waiting,  and  in  those  years 
much  might  happen. 

"Thoroughly  alive  to  the  situation,  the  Triple 
Entente  had  already  under  execution  the  prelim- 
inaries of  so  vast  an  increase  of  offensive  force,  and 
showed  such  a  determination  to  maintain  a  naval  and 
military  preponderance,  that  there  would  be  no  alter- 
native but  waiting,  once  these  schemes  were  perfected. 
The  French,  and  particularly  the  Russian,  army  was 
to  be  increased,  not  only  in  size,  but  in  efficiency  and 
equipment;  and  an  influential  minority  in  England, 
with  apparent  popular  support,  was  agitating  con- 
scription. The  English  navy  was  to  be  much  in- 
creased in  fighting  force  by  manning  at  war  strength 
in  the  near  future  a  much  larger  proportion  of  ships 
than  ever  before.  Chiefest  of  all,  the  Russians  were 
building  in  the  Baltic  a  really  formidable  fleet,  capable 
of  contesting  the  Baltic  with  Germany  and  of  threat- 
ening the  rear  of  the  German  fleet  in  the  Atlantic 
to  such  an  extent  that  united  fleet  action  in  the  North 
Sea  would  become  an  impossibility. 

"If  they  [the  Triple  Alliance]  were  to  fight  at 
all,  they  must  fight  now.  Next  summer  might  be  too 
late.  Now  the  actual  offensive  force  of  their  rivals 
was  proportionately  less  than  it  might  be  again  for 
ten  years,  and  their  difficulties  at  home  were  collec- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS       57 

tively  and  individually  greater  than  any  of  the  three 
has  seen  for  a  generation. 

"So  far  as  the  fulfillment  of  the  schemes  of  Pan- 
Germanism  was  concerned,  the  moment  was  more 
than  opportune  and  might  not  return." 

Professor  Usher  seems  to  me  to  have  sufficiently 
answered  Question  IV. 


V 

What  are  the  principles  represented  by  the  oppos- 
ing forces  in  this  war? 

A.  They  are  absolutism  and  militarism  on  the 
one  hand  and  democratic  liberty  and  representative 
government  on  the  other. 

For  a  century  a  transference  of  political  power 
from  military  despots  to  popular  assemblies  has  been 
going  on  in  western  Europe.  In  Russia  and  the  Far 
East  the  same  gradual  shift  of  forces  has  been  taking 
place.  France  and  Portugal  are  republics.  England 
is  democratic.  Japan  has  abandoned  feudalism  for 
democracy.  China  is  an  experimental  republic.  Rus- 
sia has  her  Duma.  Servia  has  fought  for  self-govern- 
ment. The  people  of  Italy  have  shown  their  real  sen- 
timents by  keeping  her  from  fighting  against  the  Al- 
lies. Belgium  has  a  growing  and  intelligent  demo- 
cratic minority  of  its  population.  At  this  critical  tide 
in  the  affairs  of  the  world  the  inmost  feelings  of  the 
peoples  involved,  the  beliefs  and  aspirations  that  are 
a  living  part  of  their  very  being  are  apt  to  dominate 
and  often — though  I  admit,  not  invariably — determine 
their  action. 

What  is  the  alignment? 

On  one  side  Germany — with  whose  ideals  and 
purposes  we  are  familiar — Austria,  not  a  real  nation, 

(58) 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS       59 

but  an  artificial  conglomeration  of  heterogeneous 
peoples,  the  mere  tool  of  Germany,  and  Turkey,  now, 
as  always,  the  type  of  a  corrupt  fanatic  Oriental  des- 
potism. 

On  the  other,  France,  England,  Belgium,  Servia, 
Portugal,  Russia,  Japan. 

And  ranged  on  their  side,  so  far  as  sympathy 
goes,  are  the  democratic  neutral  powers,  Denmark, 
Norway,  Sweden,  Holland,  Italy  and  the  United 
States. 

"The  Outlook,"  which  has  admirably  summed  up 
the  foregoing  facts,  says  editorially  (August  29, 
1914): 

"When  in  a  chemical  experiment  certain  mole- 
cules by  a  natural  attraction  combine,  that  fact  shows 
that  they  have  something  in  common.  When,  in  such 
a  war  as  this,  France,  England,  Belgium,  Portugal, 
Japan  and  Russia  combine,  that  fact  shows  that  these 
various  peoples  have  something  in  common.  We 
believe  that  something  in  common  is  a  passionate 
desire  for  democratic  liberty. 

'The  victory  of  Germany  can  be  no  other  than 
a  victory  for  militarism;  the  victory  of  the  Allies 
no  other  than  a  victory  for  pemianent  peace.  If  Ger- 
many wins  she  must  maintain  her  armaments,  if  not 
increase  them;  for  power  obtained  by  force  can  be 
maintained  only  by  force.  If  Germany  is  defeated,  a 
diminution  of  her  armaments  as  a  condition  of  peace 
may  well  be  demanded  by  the  Allied  Powers." 


VI 

In  addition  to  the  evidence  already  presented  as 
to  the  mental  attitude  of  the  average  German  toivard 
his  ozun  race  and  toward  other  European  races,  are 
there  any  facts  tending  to  shozv  his  real  attitude 
toivard  America? 

A.  If  in  answering  this  I  come  back  again  to 
Bernhardi  and  Treitschke,  it  is  because  I  believe  it  has 
been  shown  that,  in  spite  of  eleventh-hour  denials,  they 
truly  represent  the  Germany  of  1914 — the  Germany 
of  this  war.  How  much  of  the  mistaken  "devotion" 
of  the  German  nation  at  this  time  is  due  to  their  teach- 
ings and  to  those  of  their  class  it  is  impossible  to  state 
dogmatically.  But  that  they  have  greatly  influenced 
their  compatriots  there  can  be  no  doubt. 

Let  us  see  what  these  "Pan  Germanists"  have  to 
say  to  their  fellow-countrymen  about  America.  Bern- 
hardi says  (16)  that  in  our  efforts  at  The  Hague  Con- 
gresses and,  in  recent  times,  our  attempts  to  conclude 
treaties  for  the  establishment  of  Arbitration  Courts, 
we  have  not  pacific  ideals  as  the  real  motive  of  our 
actions,  but  "usually  employ  the  need  of  peace  as  a 
cloak  under  which  to  promote"  our  own  political  aims. 
He  goes  on : 

"We  can  hardly  assume  that  a  real  love  of  peace 
prompts  these  efforts.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
precisely  those  Powers  which,  as  the  weaker,  are  ex- 

(60) 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      61 

posed  to  aggression,  and  therefore  were  in  the  greatest 
need  of  international  protection,  have  been  completely 
passed  over  in  the  American  proposals  for  Arbitration 
Courts.     It  must  consequently  be  assumed  that  very 
matter-of-fact  political  motives   led   the  Americans, 
with  their  commercial  instincts,  to  take  such   steps, 
and  induced  perfidious  Albion  to  accede  to  the  pro- 
posals.    We  may  suppose  that  England  intended  to 
protect  her  rear  in  event  of  a  war  with  Germany, 
but  that  America  wished  to  have  a  free  hand  in  order 
to  follow  her  policy  of  sovereignty  in  Central  America 
without  hindrance,  and  to  carry  out  her  plans  regard- 
ing the  Panama  Canal  in  the  exclusive  interests  of 
America.     Both  countries   certainly   entertained   the 
hope  of  gaining  advantage  over  the  other  signatory 
of  the  treaty,  and  of  winning  the  lion's  share  for  them- 
selves.    Theorists  and  fanatics  imagine  that  they  see 
in  the  efforts  of  President  Taft  a  great  step  forward 
on  the  path  to  perpetual  peace,  and  enthusiastically 
agree   with    him.     Even   the    Minister    for    Foreign 
Affairs  in  England,  with  well-affected  idealism,  termed 
the  procedure  of  the  United  States  an  era  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind." 

"The  United  States  of  America,  e.  g.,  in  June, 
1911,  championed  the  ideas  of  universal  peace  in  order 
to  be  able  to  devote  their  undisturbed  attention  to 
money-making  and  the  enjoyment  of  wealth,  and  to 
save  the  three  hundred  million  dollars  which  they 
spend  on  their  army  and  navy." 

"In  America,  Elihu  Root,  formerly  Secretary  of 
State,  declared  in  1908  that  the  High  Court  of  Inter- 
national Justice  established  by  the  second  Hague  Con- 
ference would  be  able  to  pronounce  definite  and  bind- 


62      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

ing  decisions  by  virtue  of  the  pressure  brought  to  bear 
by  pubHc  opinion.  The  present  leaders  of  the  Ameri- 
can peace  movement  seem  to  share  this  idea.  With 
a  childlike  self-consciousness,  they  appear  to  believe 
that  public  opinion  must  represent  the  view  which  the 
American  plutocrats  think  most  profitable  to  them- 
selves." 

"While,  on  the  one  side,  she  [America],  insists 
on  the  Monroe  doctrine,  on  the  other  she  stretches 
out  her  own  arms  towards  Asia  and  Africa,  in  order 
to  find  bases  for  her  fleets.  The  United  States  aim 
at  the  economic  and,  where  possible,  the  political  com- 
mand of  the  American  continent,  and  at  naval  su- 
premacy in  the  Pacific." 

So  much  for  Bernhardi. 
Treitschke  says:  (17) 

"To  civilization  at  large,  the  Anglicising  of  the 
German-Americans  means  a  heavy  loss.  .  .  . 
Among  Germans  there  can  no  longer  be  any  question 
that  the  civilization  of  mankind  (Gesittung  der  Men- 
scheit)  suffers  every  time  a  German  is  transformed 
into  a  Yankee." 


No  wonder  that  the  Ridders  and  Miinsterbergs 
and  Hilprechts  and  Jastrows  seek  to  belittle  Bernhardi 
and  Treitschke  and  their  teachings  as  a  preliminary  to 
the  conciliation  of  America.  But  I  fear  that  the  trans- 
formation of  the  representative  of  "Kultur"  into  the 
despised  Yankee  takes  place  much  less  frequently  than 
we  had  supposed. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      63 

The  reason  it  does  not  take  place  oftener  is  not 
far  to  seek,  once  one  recognizes  that  our  German- 
Americans  are  still  under  the  influence  of  the  "Father- 
land." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  German  and  Ameri- 
can political  ideals  are  absolutely  divergent.  They 
have  already  come  into  conflict  over  South  America, 
the  Panama  Canal  and  the  Philippines.  Calwer,  a 
German  socialist,  says  that  preliminary  to  a  socialistic 
economic  organization  of  the  world,  "Capitalism  must 
first  bring  the  world  under  subjection,"  and  adds : 

"It  follows  that  capital — including  German  cap- 
ital as  well — ^inust  first  go  forth  and  subdue  the  world 
with  the  means  and  weapons  which  are  at  its  dis- 
posal," i.e.,  with  fire  and  sword. 


The  same  sort  of  thing  crops  out  wherever  their 
bureaucrats  write.  Herr  Schlettewein,  a  Government 
Colonist  expert,  when  asked  to  instruct  the  Reichstag 
on  the  principles  of  colonization,  said : 

"In  colonial  politics  we  stand  at  the  parting  of 
the  ways — on  the  one  side  healthy  egoism  .  .  . 
on  the  other  exaggerated  humanitarianism.  The 
Herreros  must  be  compelled  to  work,  and  to  work 
without  compensation  and  in  return  for  their  food 
only.  Forced  labor  for  years  is  only  a  just  punish- 
ment, and  at  the  same  time  it  is  the  best  method  of 
training  them." 


64      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

How  long  would  an  American  governmental  em- 
ploye remain  in  public  life  after  expressing  that  senti- 
ment to  Congress  ? 

Curiously  enough  the  fundamental  idea  of  our 
American  republic,  the  idea  for  which  the  War  of  the 
Revolution  was  fought,  the  idea  for  the  preservation 
of  which  to-day  Americans  would  unhesitatingly  lay 
down  their  lives,  is  known  to  poHtical  philosophers  and 
historians  as  *'the  Teutonic  idea." 

It  is  the  irreconcilable  conflict  between  that  idea 
and  the  mediaeval  ideas  of  a  people  willing  to  be  gov- 
erned by  a  Hohenzollern  that  prevents  the  more  fre- 
quent metamorphosis  of  a  German  into  a  "Yankee." 

Professor  McElroy  has  shown  (18)  that  the 
"Teutonic  idea" — the  idea  of  representative  govern- 
ment— dating  back  to  the  earliest  days  of  European 
history,  gradually  overwhelmed  on  the  Continent  by 
the  Roman  idea  (of  government  from  above),  except 
in  the  highlands  of  Switzerland  and  the  lowlands  of 
Holland,  survived  in  the  British  Isles.  It  was  kept 
alive  at  Runnymede,  and  by  Simon  de  Montfort's  par- 
liament and  against  it,  he  says,  "The  despotic  Tudors, 
the  treacherous  Stuarts  and  the  dull  Hanoverians 
struggled  in  vain." 

It  throve  in  the  American  Colonies  and  the 
American  Revolution  started  it  upon  a  new  and  glori- 
ous career.  Almost  at  once  the  representative  idea 
was  restored  in  England,  and  in  France  emerged, 
"after  centuries  of  complete  obliteration,  in  a  revolu- 
tionary movement  that  shook  Europe  from  end  to 
end." 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      65 

Professor  McElroy  continues : 

"It    has    since    spread    rapidly.      Wherever    the 
British  flag  has  appeared  the  Teutonic  idea  has  been 
planted   and  its   roots  carefully  nourished.     It  is  a 
plant  of  slow  growth ;  but  it  is  worth  the  trouble  of 
careful  cultivation.     No  man  can  deny  the  fact  that, 
with  all  the  faults  of  administration,  and  they  are 
many  and  grave,  often  written  in  letters  of  blood,  the 
flag  of  England  and  that  of  her  own  flesh  and  blood, 
the  United  States,  have  been  followed  always  by  the 
idea  and  practice  of  representative  government.    We 
may  criticise  the  Boer  war ;  but  we  know  that  as  soon 
as  the  Boers  were  subdued  they  were  told  to  govern 
themselves.      Men    may    question    the    propriety    of 
American  intervention  in  Cuba ;  but  no  one  can  deny 
that  we  voluntarily   stood  aside,   after   gaining   full 
possession  of  the  island,  and  invited  her  people  to 
select  representatives  and  manage  their  own  affairs. 
In  the  elaboration  of  this  idea  one  need  not  argue ;  one 
need  only  invite  attention  to  the  facts  which  are  patent 
to   all  men.     Whatever  we  may  think  of  England, 
therefore,  we  know  that  the  great  Germanic  idea  of 
government  'of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people'  follows  her  flag. 

"But  what  of  Germany  under  the  hegemony  of 
Prussia?  Prussia  has  been  throughout  her  history, 
as  her  greatest  publicist.  Professor  Hans  Delbriick, 
has  phrased  it,  a  Kriegsstaat.  Her  history  is  all  mil- 
itary history.  In  reading  it  we  miss  the  story  of  the 
glorious  conflicts  for  the  people's  right  to  a  share  in 
the  government.  There  are  no  Runnymede  barons, 
no  Simon  de  Montforts,  no  Oliver  Cromwells,  no 
Abraham  Lincolns,  in  the  history  of  Prussia.    Slowly, 


^      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

but  with  a  grim  and  terrible  certainty,  the  iron  hand 
of  the  Prussian  war  lord  has  brought  the  German 
nation  to  exactly  the  position  to  which  King  George 
III  attempted  to  bring  England  and  the  American 
colonies.  In  Germany  the  Teutonic  idea  is  dead.  A 
mixed  race,  more  Slavonic  than  Teutonic,  the  Prus- 
sian, has  deprived  the  German  people  of  their  birth- 
right. There,  as  Professor  Cramb  strikingly  phrases 
it,  'Corsica  .  .  .  has  conquered  Galilee.'  The 
ideals  of  Prussia  remain  to-day  just  w^iat  they  were 
in  the  days  of  the  Great  Elector — ideals  of  absolute 
monarchy — and  the  German  Empire  has  accepted 
them.  'The  German  people,'  wrote  Charles  Sarolea 
in  1912,  'are  governed  more  completely  from  Berlin 
and  Potsdam  than  the  French  were  governed  from 
Paris  and  Versailles.  In  theory,  every  part  of  the 
Empire  may  have  a  proportional  share  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  country;  in  reality,  Prussia  has  the 
ultimate  political  and  financial  control.'  And  it  is  to 
maintain  and  extend  this  half-Slavonic  military  des- 
potism calling  its  war  chief  the  'anointed  of  the  Lord' 
that  the  Germans  are  giving  their  lives." 


VII 

What  is  the  attitude  of  German-Americans  to- 
ward this  war  and  toward  the  principles  involved? 

This  has  been  and  is  one  of  the  great  surprises 
of  the  war  to  most  Americans.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
say  that  we  value  our  German-American  citizens, 
and  thought  that  in  times  of  stress  in  the  future,  as  in 
the  past,  they  would  demonstrate  that  they  were  as 
democratic  and  as  truly  American  as  any  of  us.  It 
was  quite  common  to  hear  the  expression  from  Ameri- 
cans that  this  was  a  ''Prussian  war,"  a  "Kaiser's 
war,"  a  "War  Lord's  fight,"  and  that  the  "German 
people"  had  our  sympathies,  though  we  hoped  Ger- 
many would  lose.  In  Mr.  Fraley's  brochure,  already 
quoted  from,  he  says  eloquently : 

"Oh,  Great  People  of  South  and  Middle  Ger- 
many; brave,  kindly,  lovers  of  the  peaceful  arts, 
lovers  of  liberty ;  you,  who  as  you  march,  are  singing 
of  homes  in  Schwabenland  and  Bayerland,  and  where 
the  grape  blooms  on  the  Rhine;  how  long  will  you 
sacrifice  not  only  your  blood  and  treasure,  but  your 
sacred  honor,  to  uphold  this  spirit  of  inexorable  mil- 
itarism, foisted  upon  you  under  the  pretense  that 
through  it  your  dear  Fatherland  may  be  at  rest,  but 
whose  real  purpose  is  that  a  Prussian  shall  write  him- 
self Imperator  et  Rex?" 

(67) 


68      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

If  we  thought  this  of  portions  of  the  German  na- 
tion itself,  it  may  be  understood  how  much  more  con- 
fident we  were  as  to  the  sentiments  of  the  Germans 
who  had  become  part  of  our  own  family.  But  we  were 
soon  to  be  undeceived. 

At  the  present  moment  the  American  people 
might  with  some  show  of  accuracy  be  divided  into 
Americans  and  a  subdivision  of  what  the  newspapers 
call  "Hyphenated- Americans." 

This  subdivision  seems  to  consist  chiefly,  if  not 
entirely,  of  a  certain  number  of  Teutonic  accessions 
to  our  citizenship — i.  e.,  of  ''German-Americans." 
What  numerical  relation  it  has  to  the  whole  body  of 
useful  and  valued  American  citizens  of  German  birth 
or  ancestry  it  is  just  now  impossible  to  determine. 
The  classification  I  suggest  would  rest  upon  three 
chief  characteristics:  1.  A  pronounced  tendency  to 
unfriendly  or  contemptuous  criticism  of  the  United 
States.  2.  Undiscriminating  sympathy  with  and  sup- 
port of  the  actions  of  Germany  before  and  during  the 
present  war.  3.  An  effort  to  arouse  anti-British 
prejudice  among  Americans. 

The  so-called  German-Americans  who  do  not  be- 
long in  the  group  thus  defined  may  be  in  the  large 
majority.  I  hope  they  are.  But  thus  far  they  have 
scarcely  been  heard  from,  while  the  others  are  almost 
daily  appealing  to  Americans  for  intellectual  and 
moral  aid  and  countenance.  That  their  appeals  are 
often  tactless,  frequently  untruthful,  and  sometimes 
insulting,  is  an  interesting  phenomenon  which  is  de- 
serving of  study. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      69 

In  a  biological  investigation  certain  factors  would 
be  at  once  considered  if  the  cause  of  a  particular  racial 
or  tribal  peculiarity  were  being  sought  for.  Chief 
among  these  factors  would  be  heredity  and  environ- 
ment, the  latter  including  the  customary  diet  with  the 
sources  of  food  supply.  This  would  be  true  whether 
the  peculiarity  were  physical  or  psychical — i.  e., 
whether  it  was,  for  example,  a  matter  of  stature  and 
complexion  or  a  matter  of  belief  and  religious  observ- 
ance. Similarly,  the  food  that  may  have  helped  to 
produce  it  would  be  of  interest  to  the  investigator, 
whether  it  were  for  the  body  or  for  the  mind — e.  g., 
whether  clay-eating  causing  the  swollen  belly  of  the 
Digger  or  Chauvinistic  literature  causing — to  use  the 
vernacular — the  swollen  head  of  the  "world  power  or 
perish"  German. 

Viewed  from  this  standpoint  the  phenomenon  in 
question  seems  to  admit  of  easy  explanation.  The  in- 
fluence of  heredity  is,  of  course,  obvious  and  unmis- 
takable. Thus  far  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
apologists — little  or  big — for  Germany  in  this  country 
are  of  German  birth  or  descent.  It  is  rare  to  find  an 
American  name  prefixed  or  appended  to  an  article  or 
communication  calling  for  the  sympathy  of  Americans 
for  Germany  in  this  crisis,  or  asking  them  to  "suspend 
judgment,"  or  appealing  for  "fairness  and  modera- 
tion," or  extolling  the  bravery,  the  self-sacrifice  and 
the  high  moral  purposes  of  the  Germans;  or  even 
narrating  the  extreme  consideration  shown  them  in 
Germany  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 


70      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

Coupled  with  their  articles  is  not  uncommonly 
abuse  of  American  methods,  attempts  to  show  that  we 
have  ourselves  been  guilty  of  crimes  no  less  abhorrent 
than  those  with  which  Germany  is  charged,  assertions 
that  our  indignation  is  hypocrisy  and  that  the  over- 
whelming anti-German  sentiment  of  the  country  is  due 
to  lying  newspapers  influencing  a  hysterical  populace. 

One  "German-American"  journalistic  "concili- 
ator" who  seems  to  be  especially  charged  with  the  duty 
of  combating  and  modifying  the  prevailing  deep  and 
spontaneous  sympathy  for  the  Allies  actually  at- 
tributes the  public  expressions  of  this  sympathy  to  our 
hypocrisy  and  untruthfulness. 

This  would  be  inexplicable  if  it  were  not  for  cer- 
tain facts  that  throw  upon  it  an  illuminating  sidelight. 

We  have  already  seen  the  attitude  of  many  Ger- 
man writers  toward  this  country.  It  is  obvious  that 
they  have  been  supplying  not  only  to  Germans,  but 
also  to  German- Americans,  the  mental  pabulum  which 
has  nourished  in  the  latter  the  combined  sentiment  of 
worship  of  militarism  and  dislike  for  the  ideals  of  the 
country  of  their  adoption.  This  seems  extravagant, 
and  it  is  certainly  surprising  that  such  a  statement 
could  have  even  a  slight  basis  of  truth.  But  listen  to 
Miinsterberg :  (19)  "In  the  German  view  the  State 
is  not  for  the  individuals,  but  the  individuals  for  the 
State." 

And  again : 

"Those  men  who  have  achieved  the  marvelous 
progress  of  German  civilization  have  done  it  in  the 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      71 

conviction  that  the  military  spirit  is  a  splendid  train- 
ing for  cultural  efficiency.  The  university  professors 
have  always  been  the  most  enthusiastic  defenders  of 
the  system.     .     .     . 

"Germany  is  not  understood  by  those  who  fancy 
that  defeat  would  tear  an  abyss  between  the  people 
and  the  emperor.  There  is  no  room  in  Germany  for 
a  president.  The  idea  of  a  president  is  that  he  draws 
his  power  from  the  will  of  the  millions  of  individuals. 
The  idea  of  the  emperor  is  that  he  is  the  symbol  of  the 
State  as  a  whole,  independent  from  the  will  of  the  in- 
dividuals, and  therefore  independent  of  any  elections. 
In  the  symbol  of  the  crown,  far  above  the  struggles  of 
partisan  individuals,  lies  the  idea  of  the  German 
nation." 

Here  are  some  more  quotations  from  "German- 
Americans":  (20) 

"The  overwhelming  majority  of  the  Germans 
give  their  heartiest  support  to  their  far-seeing  and 
wise  monarch." 

"Modern  Germany  with  all  her  great  achieve- 
ments is  inseparable  from  the  Germany  of  military 
discipline,  and  would  never  have  come  into  existence 
without  the  support  of  a  strong,  steadfast  and  deter- 
mined government.  The  'two  Germanys'  must  stand 
or  fall  together,  for  the  German  people  and  their 
Kaiser  are  one !" 

"The  German  people  are  as  inseparable  from 
their  Kaiser  as  we  in  America  are  from  our  Constitu- 
tion." 

"The  whole  German  people  are  practically  unani- 
mous in  the  opinion  that  the  monarchical  form  of 


72      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

government,  with  great  authority  and  strongly  cen- 
tralized, is  the  best  for  them.  Even  the  great  Social 
Democratic  party  is  organized  upon  this  principle, 
and  does  not  in  the  least  resemble  a  Democratic  party 
in  the  American  sense  of  the  word." 


The  Kolnische  Zeitung  (21)  publishes  a  letter 
from  a  German — or  German-American — resident  in 
this  country,  as  to  the  events  immediately  following 
the  outbreak  of  the  war : 

"These  were  glorious  days !  .  .  .  A  holy 
wrath  breaks  over  us,  the  furor  teutonicus.  All  Ger- 
many flames  up  like  a  powder-mine.  .  .  .  Who  is 
not  for  us  is  against  us.  And  they  were  all,  all  against 
us,  America  the  most  furious.  Search  history  as  you 
,  will,  you  will  not  find  a  page  that  records  the  like  of 
what  appears  in  these  days  in  the  American  press. 
They  write  with  Indian  arrowheads  and  for  ink  use 
viper's  venom.  Has  ever  one  member  of  the  family 
of  nations  ventured  to  employ  against  another  such  a 
mode  of  speech,  especially  when  that  other  was 
locked  in  a  most  sanguinary  strife? 

"And  America  is  a  neutral  State !  .  .  . 
Americans,  with  left-handed  meaning,  speak  of  the 
Kaiser  as  'the  War  Lord.'  And  for  the  honest 
Yankee  there  is  no  more  ghastly  title  than  this.  For 
it  sounds  better  to  play  the  peace  waltz !  On  all  the 
editorial  organs  they  play  now  only  one  melody :  Ger- 
many is  the  world's  champion  peace-buster  (Aller- 
weltsstorenfried),  and  when  peace  is  broken  the  free- 
dom of  the  people  is  beaten  into  fragments.  .  .  . 
A  land,  a  people,  a  nation,  is  the  prey  of  the  Amer- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      73 

ican  vultures  of  the  press.  For  these  conveyers  of 
cuhure  there  is  no  such  thing  as  honor  of  country, 
people,  or  nation." 

Price  Collier  throws  some  light  on  the  matter  as 
regards  the  German  Germans  when  he  says:  (22) 

"In  order  to  build  up  his  patriotism  the  German 
has  been  taught  systematically  to  dislike  the  Aus- 
trians,  then  the  French,  now  the  English,  and  let  not 
the  American  suppose  that  he  likes  the  American  any 
better,  for  he  does  not." 

Pere  Didon  also  helps  when  he  writes:  (23) 

"J'ai  essaye  maintes  fois  de  decouvrir  chez  I'alle- 
mand  une  sympathie  quelconque  pour  d'autres 
nations;  je  n'y  ai  reussi." 

But  the  most  illuminating  comment  is  made  in 
another  portion  of  Collier's  book,  where  he  sums  up 
his  views  as  to  the  entire  Germanic  system : 

"There  is  no  such  thing  in  Germany  as  democratic 
or  representative  government. 

"The  orderliness  of  the  Germans  is  all  forced 
upon  them  from  without,  and  is  not  due  to  their  own 
knowledge  of  how  to  take  care  of  themselves. 

"German  State  socialism  is,  in  a  nutshell,  the  de- 
cision on  the  part  of  the  rulers  that  the  individual  is 
not  competent  to  spend  his  own  money,  choose  his 
own  calling,  use  his  own  time  as  he  will  or  provide 
for  his  own  future  or  the  various  emergencies  of  life. 


74      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

By  minute  State  control  they  are  rapidly  bringing  the 
whole  population  to  an  enfeebled  social  and  political 
condition,  where  they  can  do  nothing  for  them- 
selves. .  .  .  There  are  3,000,000  officials,  great 
and  small,  in  Germany,  and  14,000,000  electors,  or, 
roughly,  one  policeman  to  every  five  adults. 

"I  have  said  that  the  population  is  well  fed,  well 
clothed  and  well  looked  after.  Of  course  they  are. 
No  slave  owner  so  maltreats  his  slaves  that  they  can- 
not work  for  him.     But  is  man  fed  by  bread  alone? 

.  .  .  "The  electors,  now  so  flattered  by  the 
smooth  phrases  of  their  tyrants  disguised  as  liberators, 
will  one  day  be  aghast  to  find  themselves  in  a  veritable 
house  of  correction  paid  for  from  their  own  savings. 

"The  very  barrenness  of  the  soil,  the  ring  of 
enemies,  the  soft  moral  and  social  texture  of  the 
population,  have,  so  their  little  knot  of  rulers  think, 
made  necessary  these  harsh,  artificial  forcing  methods. 
The  outstanding  proof  of  the  artificiality  of  this  civil- 
ization is  its  powerlessness  to  propagate.  Germans 
transplanted  from  their  hothouse  civilization  to  other 
countries  cease  to  be  Germans;  and  nowhere  in  the 
world  outside  Germany  is  German  civilization  im- 
itated, liked  or  adopted. 

"Autocracy,  bureaucracy  and  militarism  are  trip- 
lets of  straw,  not  destined  to  live.  They  are  preco- 
cious children,  teaching  the  pallid  religion  of  depen- 
dence upon  the  State  and  enforcing  the  anarchical 
morality  of  man's  despair  of  himself. 

"Germany  has  organized  herself  into  an  organiza- 
tion, and  is  the  most  overgoverned  country  in  the 
world.  Life  is  to  live,  not  to  think,  after  all.  This  is 
where  the  metaphysician  invariably  fails  when  he  mis- 
takes thinking  for  living,  when  he  mistakes  organiza- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      75 

tion,  which  can  never  be  more  than  a  mold  for  life, 

for  life  itself. 

"Germany  has  shown  us  that  the  short  cut  to  the 
government  of  a  people  by  suppression  and  strangula- 
tion results  in  a  dreary  development  of  mediocrity. 
She  has  proved  again  that  the  only  safety  for  either  an 
individual  or  a  nation  is  to  be  loved  and  respected ; 
and  in  these  days  no  one  respects  slavery  or  loves 
threats." 

Another  American  writer,  after  making  this  quo- 
tation, adds:  (24) 

"Such  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  system^  which 
has  produced  the  modern  Germany  of  machine-like 
efficiency,  of  a  governmental  philosophy  founded  upon 
force,  of  universal  submission  to  undemocratic  ideals. 
It  is  a  picture  to  sadden  all  admirers  of  the  race  which 
has  wrought  such  benefits  to  mankind. 

"Yet  this  is  the  system  which  patriotic  Germans 
in  America  insist  is  necessary.  The  fruits  of  German 
energy  and  genius,  they  say,  are  due  not  to  racial  ca- 
pacity, but  to  the  crushing  out  of  individualism  and 
the  surrender  of  national  liberty  to  the  purpose  of 
creating  a  glorified  State. 

"In  plain  terms,  they  declare  the  astonishing 
theory  that  the  German  people  are  incapable  of  prog- 
ress under  democratic  institutions,  but  have  become 
great  in  the  mass  only  because  they  have  subordinated 
the  nation's  will  to  an  intelligent  officialdom  and 
ordered  their  lives  to  the  commands  of  a  militaristic 
discipline." 

Among-  other  unamiable  peculiarities  our  Ger- 
man-American citizens  have  developed  is  one  already 


yd      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

alluded  to,  a  determined  effort  to  arouse  anti-British 
feeling  by  reference  to  all  the  occasions  when  there 
has  been  war  or  dispute  between  the  two  countries 
from  the  time  of  the  Revolution  down  to  the  Vene- 
zuelan incident. 

But  this  is  as  clumsy,  as  ineffective  and,  I  think, 
as  distasteful  to  most  Americans  as  their  equally  un- 
couth attempts  at  flattery. 

They  forget  that  America  has  never  been  the 
home  of  "grudges" ;  that  every  important  incident 
they  cite,  even  the  most  recent,  belongs  to  the  period 
of  generations  that  have  passed  away.  They  forget 
that  the  greatest  war  of  the  last  century,  between  two 
sections  of  our  own  country,  has  been,  so  far  as  con- 
tinued rancor  and  bitterness  are  concerned,  as  com- 
pletely forgotten  as  if  it  had  occurred  in  the  time  of 
the  Crusades.  They  forget  that  the  ideals  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking people  the  world  over  are  at  once  the 
most  democratic  and  the  nearest  to  successful  realiza- 
tion that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  that  our  brothers 
in  the  French  Republic  have  their  faces  steadfastly  set 
toward  the  same  goal. 

They  forget  that  our  present  differences — if  there 
are  any — are  trivial  and  superficial,  while  our  like- 
nesses are  flesh  of  our  flesh  and  bone  of  our  bone. 

They  ignore  the  fact  that  the  fairest  and  most 
penetrating  analysis  of  our  country,  our  methods  and 
our  people  ever  written  was  from  the  pen  of  an  Eng- 
lishman, Viscount  Bryce;  and  that  the  most  sympa- 
thetic and  impartial  story  of  our  War  of  Independence 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      77 

was  told  by  an  English  historian,  Sir  George  Trev- 
elyan.  They  are  stupid  enough  to  forget  the  incident 
in  Manila  Bay  in  1898,  when  the  German  Admiral 
Von  Diederich,  after  a  series  of  petty  and  provocative 
infractions  of  the  blockade  established  by  Admiral 
Dewey,  approached  Admiral  Chichester,  in  command 
of  the  British  fleet,  to  learn  what  he  would  do  if  fur- 
ther disregard  of  Dewey's  orders  were  shown.  But 
the  American  people  have  not  forgotten  Admiral  Chi- 
chester's reply  to  the  effect  that  he  ''would  do  what- 
ever Dewey  wanted  him  to  do." 

Nor  have  they  forgotten  that  at  that  very  time 
Germany  was  endeavoring  to  bring  about  an  "under- 
standing" among  European  powers  that  would  result 
in  interference  on  behalf  of  Spain. 

Our  German-American  quarrel  makers  do  not 
know  doubtless,  but  many  of  us  know,  that  in  the 
"Strangers'  Room,"  of  the  chief  Liberal  Club  of  Lon- 
don, a  room  where  all  visitors  are  shown,  there  hangs 
in  the  place  of  honor  over  the  mantel  a  framed  fac- 
simile of  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  while  above 
it  is  a  medallion  with  the  superimposed  silhouettes  in 
low  relief,  of  Washington,  Lincoln  and  Grant.  In  the 
same  room  the  Magna  Charta  occupies  a  less  conspicu- 
ous position. 

Fortunately,  they  are  about  as  likely  to  disturb  or 
even  to  affect  the  relations  between  England  and  this 
country  as  their  "Fatherland"  is  to  realize  its  insane 
dream  of  "World  Power." 

They  are  circulating  the  speeches  of  some  unim- 


78      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

portant  irreconcilables  like -Ramsay  McDonald  in  op- 
position to  the  war.  Why  don't  they  quote  the 
communications  of  the  German  Humanity  League  of 
Berlin,  to  the  British  Humanity  League,  in  which  the 
Kaiser  is  characterized  as  "the  uncurbed  tyrant,  sur- 
rounded by  parasites,  and  now  directing  the  most  des- 
perate, devilish  and  selfish  campaign  ever  waged 
against  humanity,"  and  as  "the  despot  whose  in- 
satiable egotism  is  drenching  Europe  with  the  blood 
of  its  workers  and  wage  earners?"  (25) 

Perhaps  Miinsterberg's  book,  "The  War  and  Amer- 
ica," best  illustrates  the  fatuity  of  the  German- Ameri- 
can apologists  as  well  as  their  awkward  and  stupid 
mixture  of  unpalatable  flattery  and  unfriendly 
criticism. 

The  book  has  been  admirably  dissected  by  a  re- 
cent reviewer.  (26).  Professor  Aliinsterberg  has  re- 
ceived so  much  undeserved  attention  from  our  Ameri- 
can journalists  that  it  seems  worth  while  to  quote  por- 
tions of  this  review. 

"His  method  of  argument  seems  directed  at  a 
singularly  untrained  public.  ...  His  major  pre- 
mises he  never  takes  the  pains  to  substantiate.  In- 
stead, he  reiterates  them  as  axiomatic.  'Culturally, 
Russia  is  Asia,'  Russia  desires  to  blot  out  Western 
European  civilization,  hence  Germany  is  fighting  for 
civilization  against  barbarism,  in  an  inevitable  con- 
flict. These  fundamental  notions  are  drummed  in  with 
Prussian  thoroughness.  But  these  are  just  the  postu- 
lates that  a  thoughtful  reader  wants  to  have  proved. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      79 

.  .  Aside  from  bandying  big  impressive  antith- 
eses—Teuton and  Slav,  Europe,  Asia,  etc.— Professor 
Miinsterberg  varies  his  tactics  by  condescending  flat- 
tery of  America;  and  by  occasional  excursions  in 
pure  sentiment.  The  whole  melange  is  highly  sea- 
soned, and  possibly  grateful  to  the  literary  palate  of 
the  very  simple  reader  for  whom  it  is  concocted. 

"The  omniscient  tone  of  the  plea  is  characteristic. 
Such  a  generalization  as  that  Europe  means 
thought  while  Asia  means  feeling,  and  accordingly  one 
must  cut  the  other's  throat,  is  admirably  calculated  to 
solve  the  vexed  problem  of  West  and  East — in  any 
corner  grocery  store.    And  for  whom  does  Professor 
Miinsterberg  limn  the  picture  of  an  idyllic,  scholarly, 
industrial,  unaggressive,  and  wholly  pacific  Germany 
reluctantly  kept  under  arms  by  bellicose  neighbors? 
Plainly,  for  a  reader  who  has  not  heard  of  the  parti- 
tion of  Poland,  the  seizing  of  Silesia,  the  grasping  of 
Schleswig-Holstein,  the  annexation  of  Hanover,  the 
retention  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and,  only  yesterday, 
the  premature  incorporation  of  Belgium  into  the  Ger- 
man Empire. 

"Then  what  kind  of  a  reader  is  asked  to  swallow 
whole  the  theory  of  a  ruthlessly  aggressive  Russia 
menacing  all  Western  Europe?  Evidently,  a  reader 
who  does  not  know  that,  first,  Russia  set  conquered 
Germany  on  her  feet,  then  Austria  threatened  by  the 
Hungarian  revolution — a  reader  who  does  not  know 
that  in  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  when  Russia  was 
strong  and  Central  Europe  a  congeries  of  weak  states, 
Russia  showed  no  exceptional  aggressiveness  against 
European  Powers. 

.  .  .  "We  must  note  the  kind  of  philosophical 
thought  that  underlies  the  surface  rhetoric.  It  is  a 
philosophy  not  overtly  expressed.     It  would  hardly 


80      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

bear  ventilation  in  America.  You  may  sense  it  in  the 
sharp  distinction  between  'routine  agreements  like  the 
neutrahty  treaties/  and  a  'pledge  of  international 
honor'  like  the  Triple  Alliance.  Why  is  there  no 
pledge  of  honor  in  a  neutrality  agreement?  Plainly 
because  it  is  made  with  and  in  behalf  of  a  weak 
Power.  Honor  first  begins  among  peers.  Thus  is 
honor  made  in  the  Germany  of  Zabern. 

"Again  consider  the  system  of  international 
morals  implied  in  the  following: 

"  'It  was  the  ethical  duty  of  the  Russians  to  strain 
every  effort  for  the  expansion  of  their  influence,  and 
it  was  the  ethical  duty  of  the  Germans  and  Austrians 
to  strain  every  eft"ort  to  prevent  it.  In  the  same  way, 
it  was  the  moral  right  of  France  to  make  use  of  any 
hour  of  German  embarrassment  for  recapturing  its 
military  glory  by  a  victory  of  revenge.  And  it  was 
the  moral  right  of  England  to  exert  its  energies  for 
keeping  the  control  of  the  seas  and  for  destroying  the 
commercial  rivalry  of  the  Germans.  No  one  is  to  be 
blamed.' 

"International  morality,  that  is,  consists  in  the 
insensate  inevitable  clash  of  national  egotisms,  which, 
being  national,  are  holy.     .     .     . 

"We  have  left  dangling  the  very  interesting  ques- 
tion: For  what  kind  of  a  reader  is  this  skillful  blend 
of  dogmatism,  innuendo,  sophistry,  and  gush  in- 
tended? Fortunately,  Profesor  Miinsterberg  has 
the  candor  to  make  the  matter  clear.  It  is  addressed 
to  'the  American  mind'  which  has  an  'unusual  degree 
of  imitativeness  and  suggestibility.'  It  is  addressed 
to  the  individual  American  who,  when  excited,  tends 
to  become  'a  mere  automatic  mechanism  in  which  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  and  impulses  of  his  neighbor 
control  his  mind.'     .     .     .     'There  is  a  lack  of  indi- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      81 

vidual  resistance  to  prescribed  opinions  which  pro- 
duces in  excited  states  a  colorless  wholesale  judgment 
which  may  be  entirely  different  from  the  natural  stand 
of  the  sober  single  individual'  Elsewhere  we  learn 
that  in  all  European  matters  the  American  is  moved 
chiefly  by  a  provincial  prejudice  against  the  parapher- 
nalia and  nomenclature  of  monarchy.  He  takes  mere 
names  for  real  things. 

"Professor  Miinsterberg  has  produced  a  book  that 
is  precisely  adapted  to  impress  the  sort  of  'American 
mind,'  he  thus  defines,  but  no  other  sort." 

Even  in  his  latest  text-book  of  Psychology  he 
evinces  the  same  insufferable  belief  in  essential  racial 
superiority,  saying  (p.  234)  : 

"The  Southern  peoples  are  children  of  the  mo- 
ment ;  the  Teutonic  live  in  the  things  which  lie  beyond 
the  w^orld,  in  the  infinite  and  the  inefi"able." 

I  still,  however,  cling  to  the  hope  that  the  sup- 
port at  present  undoubtedly  given  to  the  German  cause 
by  our  German-American  citizens  is  a  temporary 
manifestation  of  the  strength  of  the  ties  of  blood,  and 
that  they  as  a  class  are  not  fitly  represented  by 
their  present  spokesmen.  I  cannot  believe  that,  how- 
ever they  may  have  been  influenced  by  heredity,  by 
the  poisonous  teachings  of  the  Bernhardis  and  Treit- 
schkes  and  by  the  flamboyant  but  spurious  patriotism 
of  the  Miinsterbergs  and  Ridders  and  Hilprechts,  they 
will  permanently  espouse  a  cause  which  is  based  upon 
the  idea  that  "there  is  no  room  in  Germany  for  a  presi- 


82      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

dent"  for  the  reason  that  ''the  idea  of  a  president  is 
that  he  draws  his  power  from  the  will  of  millions  of 
individuals."  It  must  be  impossible  that  the  kindly, 
sociable  and  lovable  friends  I  have  among  the  Ger- 
mans, here  and  abroad,  can  subscribe  to  the  ethics  of 
the  Kaiser  as  expressed  to  the  German  soldiers 
despatched  to  China  in  1900: 

"When  you  meet  the  foe  you  will  defeat  him. 
No  quarter  will  be  given,  no  prisoners  will  be  taken. 
Let  all  who  fall  into  your  hands  be  at  your  mercy. 
Just  as  the  Huns,  a  thousand  years  ago,  under  the 
leadership  of  Etzel  (Attila),  gained  a  reputation,  in 
virtue  of  which  they  still  live  in  historical  tradition, 
so  may  the  name  of  Germany  become  known  in  such  a 
manner  in  China  that  no  Chinaman  will  ever  again 
even  dare  to  look  askance  at  a  German."     (27) 

The  reference  to  Attila  was  commonly  sup- 
pressed, but  the  rest  of  the  quotation  was  circulated 
on  postcards  throughout  Germany.     (28) 

Two  days  later  the  modern  Attila  preached  a  ser- 
mon on  board  the  Hohenzollern!    (29) 

I  may,  of  course,  be  mistaken,  but  until  the  mis- 
take is  demonstrated  I  do  not  intend  to  include  in  my 
condemnation  of  the  present  "German-American"  at- 
titude any  but  those  who  have  publicly  put  themselves 
on  record.  As  for  them,  they  should  abandon  the  pre- 
tense of  being  even  "hyphenated"  Americans. 


VIII 

Hozv  much  reliance  is  to  be  placed  upon  state- 
ments emanating  from  Germany  at  this  time? 

We  have  been  deluged  with  complaints  of  the 
"unfairness"  with  which  Germany's  case  has  been  pre- 
sented to  the  world,  the  "lies"  that  have  been  told 
about  her,  the  "double  facedness"  of  many  of  our 
newspapers.  Even  the  German  Chancellor — the  same 
chancellor  who  on  July  28th  was,  according  to  Mr. 
Beck,  guilty  of  a  "pitiful  and  insincere  quibble,"  and 
whose  Secretary  of  State  on  July  29th  he  says  told 
a  "stupid  falsehood" — on  September  2d,  by  authority 
of  the  Emperor,  took  the  trouble  to  convey  to  the 
American  people  his  confidence  that  it  would  not 
"allow  itself  to  be  deceived  through  the  war  of  false- 
hood which  our  enemies  are  conducting  against  us." 

We  know  what  to  think  of  the  Chancellor's  ver- 
acity. The  small  fry — the  Miinsterbergs  and  Hil- 
prechts — are  shrill  in  their  clamorous  accusations  of 
unfairness  and  mendacity,  including  all  their  op- 
ponents and  some  of  us.  Dr.  Hilprecht,  Heaven  save 
the  mark,  calls  Sir  Edward  Grey  an  "arch  deceiver," 
and  accuses  (30) 

"all  our  four  principal  enemies,  against  whom  thus 
far  battles  have  been  fought— the  Belgians,  the  Eng- 
lish, the  French  and  the  Russians — government,  sol- 

(83) 


84      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

diers  and  population  alike,  of  having  wilfully,  cow- 
ardly and  cruelly,  broken  the  sacred  pledges  given  by 
their  representatives  at  The  Hague  conference  before 
God  and  mankind." 

In  support  of  one  part  of  this  statement,  he  says : 

"The  British  dum-dum  cartridges  taken  from  the 
first  original  package,  opened  in  the  presence  of  the 
war  correspondents,  show  the  inscription,  'Art.  Dept. 
Ive.'  at  the  bottom  of  their  brass  casings." 

An  archaeologist  should,  of  course,  be  an  authority 
as  to  "inscriptions,"  but  we  need  not  regard  this  evi- 
dence as  conclusive. 

Fortunately,  we  have  a  better  test  of  Germany's 
reliability  as  to  truth  at  this  juncture  than  could  be 
afforded  by  either  Chancellors  or  archaeologists. 

Perhaps  the  most  astonishing  effort  to  influence 
American  opinion  is  the  73-page  pamphlet  entitled 
"Truth  About  Germany :  Facts  About  the  War."  If 
it  had  been  headed  "Falsehoods  About  Germany: 
Lies  About  the  War"  the  title  would  have  been  more 
accurately  descriptive.  Professor  Lovejoy,  of  Johns 
Hopkins,  has  fitly  characterized  it  as  "a  clumsy  com- 
pilation of  fictions,  irrelevancies  and  vulgar  appeals  to 
what  are  apparently  conceived  to  be  American  preju- 
dices."   He  specifies  some  of  the  direct  falsehoods: 

"1.  The  pamphlet  (31)  says  that  Austria-Hun- 
gary zvas  able  to  prove  that  the  Servian  government 
had  been  responsible  for  the  plan  of  the  assassination 
at  Sarajevo. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      85 

"2.  Austria-Hungary  addressed  to  the  Servian 
government  a  number  of  demands  which  aimed  at 
nothing  but  the  suppression  of  the  anti-Austrian 
propaganda.  Servia  was  on  the  point  of  accepting 
the  demand,  when  there  arrived  a  dispatch  from  St. 
Petersburg,  and  Servia  mobiUzed.  Then  Austria  had 
to  act.    Thus  arose  the  Austro-Servian  war." 

3.  "Great  Britain  asked  that  Germany  should 
allow  French  and  Belgian  troops  to  form  on  Belgian 
territory  for  a  march  against  our  frontier  .  .  . 
England  and  France  were  resolved  not  to  respect  the 
neutrality  of  Belgium  .  .  .  (They)  did  not  give 
up  their  plan  of  attacking  Germany  through  Bel- 
gium." 

4.  "England  aims  at  being  mistress  of  the  Old 
World  in  order  to  occupy  either  an  equal,  or  a  menac- 
ing, position  towards  the  New  World.  For  this  pur- 
pose she  has  encouraged  this  war." 

Professor  Love  joy  adds:    (32) 

"Every  American  recipient  of  the  pamphlet  who 
subsequently  took  the  trouble  to  examine  the  entire 
published  evidence  in  the  case  must  have  speedily 
discovered  the  statements  of  specific  historical  fact  in 
the  passages  cited  to  be  either  direct  falsehoods  or 
suggestiones  falsi.  But  it  should  be  added  that  the 
publication  in  question  is  marked  by  a  yet  more  sm- 
gular  suppressio  veri;  it  contains  no  hint  of  what  are 
perhaps  the  two  most  decisive  of  the  'facts  about  the 
war.'  These,  since  they  seem  to  have  been  less  em- 
phasized in  America  than  they  deserve  to  be,  should 
perhaps  be  indicated  specifically. 

It  is  a  fact  undisclosed  in  the  pamphlet  that  on 


86      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

July  30,  and  again  in  a  modified  form  on  July  31, 
the  Russian  government  communicated  to  the  Ger- 
man government  an  undertaking  to  'stop  all  military 
preparations'  (or  'to  maintain  a  waiting  attitude')  if 
Austria  would  consent  to  'stay  the  march  of  her 
troops  on  Servian  territory  and,  recognizing  that  the 
Austro-Servian  conflict  has  assumed  the  character  of 
a  question  of  general  European  interest,  to  admit  that 
the  Great  Powers  may  examine  the  satisfaction  which 
Servia  can  accord  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  govern- 
ment without  injury  to  her  rights  as  a  sovereign  state 
and  to  her  independence.' 

"It  is  a  fact  equally  undisclosed  in  this  repository 
of  information  about  the  causes  of  the  war,  that  on 
the  morning  of  July  31,  Sir  Edward  Grey  declared 
to  the  German  Ambassador  in  London  that  'if  Ger- 
many could  get  any  reasonable  proposal  put  forward 
which  made  it  clear  that  Germany  and  Austria  were 
striving  to  preserve  European  peace,  and  that  Russia 
and  France  would  be  unreasonable  if  they  rejected  it,' 
he  would  'support  it  at  St.  Petersburg  and  Paris,  and 
go  the  length  of  saying  that  if  Russia  and  France 
would  not  accept  it  his  Majesty's  government  would 
have  nothing  more  to  do  with  the  consequences.' 

"The  most  illuminating  'truth  about  Germany' 
is  that,  on  the  same  day,  with  these  two  pledges  be- 
fore it,  the  government  at  Berlin  sent  to  Russia  and 
to  France  ultimata  which  were  certain,  and  therefore 
were  manifestly  designed,  to  render  war  within  twen- 
ty-four hours  inevitable." 

The  pamphlet  "Truth  About  Germany"  was  pre- 
pared by  a  Board  of  Editors  which  included  many  of 
the  best-known  men  in  letters,  science,  finance  and  Ger- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      87 

man  public  life.  As  Lovejoy  says,  the  pamphlet  seems 
to  show  that  the  very  class  that  among  cultivated  per- 
sons of  other  countries  has  gained  for  Germany  its 
greatest  distinction, 

"has  signally  failed  at  the  most  critical  moment  in 
German  history,  to  perform  its  proper  function — the 
function  of  detached  criticism,  of  cool  consideration, 
of  insisting  that  facts  and  all  the  relevant  facts,  be 
known  and  faced.  It  appears  to  be  shouting  with 
the  rest  for  a  wholly  avoidable  war  of  which,  in 
nearly  all  non-German  eyes,  the  moral  indefensibil- 
ity seems  exceeded  only  by  its  fatal  unwisdom  from  a 
purely  national  point  of  view." 

It  does  not  seem  worth  while  to  consider  further 
the  question  of  the  credibility  of  recent  German  offi- 
cial and  semi-official  statements. 


IX 

What  is  the  truth  as  to  the  ''pre-eminence"  of 
German  "Kultiir,"  of  German  civilisation,  of  German 
achievement  in  letters,  arts  and  sciences? 

A.  "Truth  About  Germany"  was  in  itself  suffi- 
cient, considering  the  representative  character  of  its 
authors  and  editors,  to  raise  grave  doubts  as  to  the 
value  of  German  ''culture"  unless  one  could  be  both 
cultured  and  untruthful.  But  much  broader  views  of 
this  subject  have  been  taken  by  Professor  Brander 
Matthews  (33)  and  by  Professor  Ramsay: 

After  expressing  his  surprise  that  scholars  like 
Eucken  and  Haeckel  should  be  possessed  of  the  convic- 
tion that  Germany  is  the  supreme  example  of  a  highly 
civilized  state,  and  the  undisputed  leader  in  the  arts 
and  sciences  which  represent  culture,  Professor  Mat- 
thews continues  by  pointing  out  that 

"Certain  things  seem  to  show  German  'culture'  a 
little  lacking  in  the  social  instinct,  the  desire  to  make 
things  easy  and  pleasant  for  others,  an  instinct  which 
is  the  dominating  influence  in  French  civilization. 
.  .  .  It  is  to  the  absence  of  this  social  instinct,  to 
the  inability  to  understand  the  attitude  of  other  parties 
to  a  discussion,  to  the  unwillingness  to  appreciate  their 
point  of  view,  that  we  may  ascribe  the  failure  of  Ger- 
man diplomacy,  a  failure  which  has  left  her  almost 
without  a  friend  in  her  hour  of  need.  And  success  in 
diplomacy  is  one  of  the  supreme  tests  of  civilization. 

(88) 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      89 

"The  claim  asserted  explicitly  or  implicitly  in  be- 
half of  German  culture  seems  to  be  based  on  the  be- 
lief that  the  Germans  are  leaders  in  the  arts  and  in 
the  sciences.  So  far  as  the  art  of  war  .  .  .  and 
so  far  as  the  art  of  music  are  concerned,  there  is  no 
need  to  cavil. 

"But  what  about  the  other  and  more  purely  intel- 
lectual arts?  How  many  are  the  contemporary 
painters  and  sculptors  and  architects  of  Germany  who 
have  succeeded  in  winning  the  cosmopolitan  reputa- 
tion which  has  been  the  reward  of  a  score  of  the 
artists  of  France  and  of  half  a  dozen  of  the  artists  of 
America? 

"When  we  consider  the  art  of  letters  we  find  a 
similar  condition.  Germany  has  had  philosophers 
and  historians  of  high  rank;  but  in  pure  literature 
.  .  .  for  a  period  of  nearly  sixty  years — only  one 
German  author  succeeded  in  winning  a  world-wide 
celebrity — and  Heine  was  a  Hebrew,  who  died  in 
Paris,  out  of  favor  with  his  countrymen,  perhaps  be- 
cause he  had  been  unceasing  in  calling  attention  to 
the  deficiencies  of  German  culture.  ...  No 
German  writer  attained  to  the  international  fame 
achieved  by  Cooper  and  by  Poe,  by  Walt  Whitman 
and  by  Mark  Twain.  And  it  was  during  these  three- 
score years  of  literary  aridity  in  Germany  that  there 
was  a  superb  literary  fecundity  in  Great  Britain  and 
in  France,  and  that  each  of  these  countries  produced 
at  least  a  score  of  authors  whose  names  are  known 
throughout  the  world.  Even  sparsely  settled  Scan- 
dinavia brought  forth  a  triumvirate,  Bjorsen,  Ibsen 
and  Brandes,  without  compeers  in  Germany.  And 
from  Russia  the  fame  of  Turgenef  and  of  Tolstoy 
spread  abroad  a  knowledge  of  the  heart  and  mind 


90      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

of  a  great  people  who  are  denounced  by  Germans  as 
barbarous," 

As  Heine  is  the  one  German  who  has  been  pre- 
eminent in  literature  these  many  years,  it  is  interest- 
ing, in  view  of  recent  happenings,  to  recall  what  he 
wrote  seventy-eight  years  ago : 

"Christianity — and  this  is  its  highest  merit — has, 
in  some  degree,  softened,  but  it  could  not  destroy, 
that  brutal  German  joy  of  battle.  When  once  the 
taming  talisman,  the  Cross,  breaks  in  two,  the  sav- 
agery of  the  old  fighters,  the  senseless  Berserker  fury 
of  which  the  northern  poets  sing  and  say  so  much, 
will  gush  up  anew.  That  talisman  is  decayed,  and  the 
day  will  come  when  it  will  piteously  collapse.  Then 
the  old  stone  gods  will  rise  from  the  silent  ruins,  and 
rub  the  dust  of  a  thousand  years  from  their  eyes. 
Thor,  with  his  giant's  hammer,  will  at  last  spring  up, 
and  shatter  to  bits  the  Gothic  cathedrals." ! ! 

Professor  Matthews  thinks  that  in  the  field  of 
science,  pure  and  applied,  the  defenders  of  the  suprem- 
acy of  German  culture  will  probably  take  their  last 
stand.    He  goes  on : 

"That  the  German  contribution  to  science  has 
been  important  is  indisputable;  yet  it  is  equally  in- 
disputable that  the  two  dominating  scientific  leaders 
of  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  Dar- 
win and  Pasteur.  It  is  in  chemistry  that  the  Germans 
have  been  pioneers ;  yet  the  greatest  of  modern  chem- 
ists is  Mendeleef.     It  was  Hertz  who  made  the  dis- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      91 

covery  which  is  the  foundation  of  Marconi's  inven- 
tion ;  but  although  not  a  few  valuable  discoveries  are 
to  be  credited  to  the  Germans,  perhaps  almost  as 
many  as  to  either  the  French  or  the  British,  the  Ger- 
man contribution  in  the  field  of  invention,  in  the 
practical  application  of  scientific  discovery,  has  been 
less  than  that  of  France,  less  than  that  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, and  less  than  that  of  the  United  States.  The 
Germans  contributed  little  or  nothing  to  the  develop- 
•nent  of  the  railroad,  the  steamboat,  the  automobile, 
5he  aeroplane,  the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the  phono- 
graph, the  photograph,  the  moving  picture,  the  elec- 
tric light,  the  sewing  machine,  and  the  reaper  and 
binder.  Even  those  dread  instruments  of  war,  the 
revolver  and  the  machine  gun,  the  turreted  ship,  the 
torpedo,  and  the  submarine,  are  not  due  to  the  mili- 
tary ardor  of  the  Germans.  It  would  seem  as  though 
the  Germans  had  been  lacking  in  the  inventiveness 
which  is  so  marked  a  feature  of  our  modern  civil- 
ization. 

"Nations  are  never  accepted  by  other  nations  at 
their  own  valuation;  and  Germans  need  not  be  sur- 
prised that  we  are  now  astonished  to  find  them  assert- 
ing their  natural  self-appreciation,  with  the  apparent 
expectation  that  it  will  pass  unchallenged.  The 
world  owes  a  debt  to  modern  Germany  beyond  all 
question,  but  this  is  far  less  than  the  debt  owed  to 
England  and  to  France.  It  would  be  interesting  if 
some  German,  speaking  with  authority,  should  now 
be  moved  to  explain  to  us  Americans  the  reasons 
which  underlie  the  insistent  assertion  of  the  superior- 
itv  of  German  civilization.  Within  the  past  few 
weeks  we  have  been  forced  to  gaze  at  certain  of  the 
less  pleasant  aspects  of  the  German  character:  and 
we  have  been  made  to  see  that  the  militarism  of  the 


92      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

Germans  is  in  absolute  contradiction  to  the  preach- 
ing and  to  the  practice  of  the  great  Goethe,  to  whom 
they  proudly  point  as  the  ultimate  representative  of 
German  culture."     .     .     . 

He  adds  finally :  "The  most  obvious  character- 
istic of  a  highly  civilized  man  is  his  willingness  to 
keep  his  word,  at  whatever  cost  to  himself.  For  rea- 
sons satisfactory  to  itself  Germany  broke  its  pledge 
to  respect  the  neutrality  of  Luxemburg  and  of  Bel- 
gium. It  is  another  characteristic  of  civilization  to 
cherish  the  works  of  art  which  have  been  bequeathed 
to  us  by  the  past.  For  reasons  satisfactory  to  itself 
Germany  destroyed  Louvain,  more  or  less  completely. 
It  is  a  final  characteristic  of  civilized  man  to  be  hu- 
mane and  to  refrain  from  ill-treating  the  blameless. 
For  reasons  satisfactory  to  itself,  Germany  dropped 
bombs  in  the  unbesieged  city  of  Antwerp  and  caused 
the  death  of  innocent  women  and  children.  Here 
are  three  instances  where  German  'culture'  has  been 
tested  and  found  wanting." 

Professor  William  Ramsay  (34),  whose  position 
in  the  scientific  world  is  of  the  very  highest,  says: 

"The  originality  of  the  German  race  has  never, 
in  spite  of  certain  brilliant  exceptions,  been  their 
characteristic ;  their  metier  has  been  rather  the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  inventions  and  discoveries  of  others ; 
and  in  this  they  are  conspicuous.  .  .  .  The  aim 
of  science  is  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  of  the  un- 
known ;  the  aim  of  applied  science,  the  bettering  of 
the  lot  of  the  human  race.  German  ideals  are  infin- 
itely far  removed  from  the  conception  of  the  true 
man  of  science." 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      93 

He  asks — as  to  the  result  of  the  annihilation  of 
the  present  ruling  German  despots : 

"\\^ill  the  progress  of  science  be  thereby  re- 
tarded? I  think  not.  The  greatest  advances  in 
scientific  thought  have  not  been  made  by  members  of 
the  German  race ;  nor  have  the  earlier  appUcations 
of  science  had  Germany  for  their  origin.  So  far  as 
we  can  see  at  present,  the  restriction  of  the  Teutons 
will  relieve  the  world  from  a  deluge  of  mediocrity. 
Much  of  their  previous  reputation  has  been  due  to 
Hebrew  residents  among  them ;  and  we  may  safely 
trust  that  race  to  persist  in  vitality  and  intellectual 
activity." 


X 

PVhat  are  the  duties  of  America  at  this  time? 

It  seems  to  me  a  very  narrow  and  indeed  a  some- 
what discreditable  view  of  the  duty  of  America 
at  this  time,  which  would  confine  us  to  strict  "neu- 
trality" in  both  word  and  deed.  The  former  is,  of 
course,  practically  impossible.  The  habit  of  saying 
what  we  think  is  too  ingrained  to  be  abandoned  by  rea- 
son of  a  Presidential  or  any  other  decree  or  proclama- 
tion. And  what  many  Americans  think  is  that  we 
have  ourselves  been  offended,  injured,  flouted  by  Ger- 
many's actions,  beginning  with  the  violation  of  the 
Belgian  neutrality. 

There  is  in  existence  a  document  to  which  the 
United  States  of  America  is  one  of  the  signatories. 
Another  signer  is  the  German  Emperor.  This  docu- 
ment embodies  the  results  of  The  Hague  Conferences 
of  1899  and  1907.  Mr.  Muirhead,  of  London  (35), 
has  discussed  in  a  most  interesting  manner  the  situa- 
tion arising  from  the  existence  of  this  paper.  One  of 
its  sections  (Convention  Concerning  the  Laws  and 
Customs  of  War  on  Land)  consists  of  a  recitation  of 
the  practices  which  the  signers  solemnly  undertake  to 
abstain  from  in  the  prosecution  of  a  war.  Among  the 
provisions  in  this  code  are  the  following: 

(94) 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      95 

Undefended  towns  shall  not  be  bombarded 
(Article  25;   also  Article  1  of  Naval  Code). 

Pillage  is  expressly  prohibited  (Articles  28  and 

47). 

Illegal  contributions  must  not  be  levied  (Articles 
49  and  52). 

Militia  and  volunteer  corps  enjoy  the  rights  of 
belligerents  (Article  1). 

The  seizure  of  funds  belonging  to  private  persons 
or  local  authorities  is  prohibited  (Articles  46,  53  and 
56). 

Collective  penalties  for  individual  acts  are  for- 
bidden (Article  50). 

Every  effort  must  be  made  to  spare  buildings 
dedicated  to  public  worship,  art,  science  or  charitable 
purposes  (Article  56). 

The  terrorization  of  a  country  by  outrages  on  its 
civilian  population  is  forbidden  (Article  46). 

It  is  forbidden  to  make  improper  use  of  a  flag  of 
truce,  of  the  national  flag,  of  the  military  insignia  and 
uniform  of  the  enemy,  or  of  the  distinctive  signs  of  the 
Geneva  Convention  (Article  23) ;  and  it  is  forbidden 
to  kill  or  mutilate  the  wounded,  or  to  kill  and  wound 
by  treachery  (Article  23). 

The  weight  of  evidence  that  Germany  has  fla- 
grantly violated  most  of  these  regulations  is  over- 
whelming, even  if  we  omit  those  in  the  last  paragraph 
as  difficult  to  prove  and  peculiarly  liable  to  exaggera- 
tion. 

Mr.  Muirhead  continues : 


96      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"The  question,  then,  seems  to  arise  obviously 
and  inevitably :  What  is  the  position  in  these  circum- 
stances of  the  other  signatories  to  the  code? 

"The  United  States  of  America  was  not  one  of 
the  guarantors  of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium.  Hence, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  feelings  of  its  citizens, 
it  was  not,  as  a  nation  or  government,  legally  called 
on  to  interfere.  True,  the  action  of  Germany  was  a 
direct  attack  on  the  principles  of  liberty  and  inde- 
pendent nationality,  of  which  the  United  States  of 
America  is  rightly  considered  as  one  of  the  greatest 
protagonists.  But  it  may  be  granted  that  civilization 
has  not  yet  progressed  so  far  that  intervention  on  a 
purely  ideal  ground  can  be  held  to  be  a  matter  of 
practical  politics — even  for  a  country  with  90,000,000 
inhabitants,  and  wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice. 

"But  unless  the  'scrap  of  paper'  theory  is  to  be 
applied  indiscriminately  to  all  contracts  and  treaties 
between  nations,  what  is  the  exact  meaning  of  the 
signatures  of  other  Powers,  including  the  United 
States,  to  the  decisions  of  The  Hague  conference? 
Do  they  mean  only  a  promise  that  the  signatory  will 
itself  observe  those  decisions?  Or  do  they  go  fur- 
ther, and  involve  the  obligation  that  each  signatory 
State  shall,  so  far  as  lies  in  its  power,  enforce  the 
observance  on  any  signatory  that  violates  them?  It 
cannot  be  maintained  that  such  an  obligation  goes  so 
far  as  to  involve  undertaking  war  for  the  purpose  of 
enforcing  observance,  but  surely  it  involves  some 
effort  to  procure  it?  Can  a  great  nation  afford  to  put 
its  name  to  a  document  and  then  stand  by  in  icy 
neutrality  while  that  document  is  being  torn  to 
shreds  by  another  of  the  high  contracting  parties? 
Is  the  conduct  of  Germany  in  this  regard  really  as 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      97 

much  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the  United  States 
of  America  as  to  China  or  Abyssinia?  It  is  obvious 
that  the  signature  of  Germany  is  worthless,  and  that 
the  signature  of  Great  Britain  is  being  honored.  But 
has,  or  has  not,  the  value  of  that  of  the  United  States 
of  America  been  somewhat  impaired?  Germany's 
word  was  given  to  America  as  much  as  to  England. 
Can  America,  then,  consonantly  with  its  dignity  and 
honor,  allow  Germany  to  snap  its  fingers  at  her,  and 
say,  'Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?'  " 

Mr.  Muirhead  asks  if  the  attitude  of  the  United 
States  of  America  should  be,  or  must  be,  that  of  a 
neutral,  equally  friendly  to  both  parties  and  waiting 
quietly  for  the  chance  to  insinuate  proposals  of  peace ; 
or  if  the  necessity  of  the  case  is  not  som.ething  wider 
and  deeper  than  can  be  met  by  an  ordinary  peace 
based  on  comparatively  unimportant  mutual  conces- 
sions ?  Is  it  not,  he  says,  inevitably  a  fight  to  a  finish, 
and  is  not  the  United  States  of  America  enormously 
interested  in  having  that  "finish"  in  one  way  only? 

He  expresses  the  hope  that  the  Allies  will  need 
no  material  assistance  from  the  United  States  of 
Atnerica  in  achieving  their  ends,  but  adds : 

"Those  of  us,  however,  who  love  America  must 
pray  that  she  will  definitely  declare  herself  on  the 
side  of  popular  liberty,  if  for  nothing  else  than  for 
the  preservation  of  the  full  measure  of  our  love  and 
admiration." 

In  the  early  days  of  the  war  I  was  travelling  in 
Alaska  and  in  our  Pacific  northwest  and  Canada.     I 


98      A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

talked  with  many  Americans  whom  I  met  on  trains  or 
boats  or  at  hotels.  I  did  not  find  among  them  a  single 
pro-German.  But  when  I  expressed  the  view,  which 
I  then  absolutely  held,  that  we — the  United  States — 
should  help  to  make  the  issue  of  the  war  certain  by 
promptly  offering  the  Allies  every  assistance  in  our 
power,  I  found  no  one  to  agree  with  me. 

I  think  I  have  noticed  since  then  a  steadily  in- 
creasing and  strengthening  trend  of  public  opinion 
in  that  direction.  Now,  when  I  express  the  same  sen- 
timents, nearly  every  second  person  acquiesces.  Many 
Americans  have  publicly  put  themselves  on  record  as 
favoring  some  form  of  intervention  on  behalf  of  the 
Allies.  Some  would  be  content  with  a  protest  against 
the  violation  of  the  Hague  convention  and  an  expres- 
sion of  opinion  that  would  officially  declare  to  the 
world,  what  the  world  already  knows,  the  overwhelm- 
ing sympathy  of  this  country  for  the  cause  and  the 
principles  for  which  the  Allies  are  fighting. 

Others,  among  whom  I  am  to  be  counted,  are  in 
favor  of  prompt  recognition  of  the  fact  that  for  the 
sake  of  humanity  and  of  civilization  we  cannot  afford 
to  permit  Germany  to  win,  and  that  the  surest  way  of 
preventing  it  is  to  take  sides  at  once.  It  seems  a  ter- 
rible thing  to  advocate  war  for  one's  own  country 
when  war  might  be  avoided.  But  it  is  more  terrible 
to  think  of  the  indefinite  prolongation  of  the  slaughter 
now  going  on  and  of  the  experiences  of  the  coming 
winter  now  awaiting  not  only  the  combatants  but  the 
women  and  children  and  babies  left  without  support 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS      99 

and  shelter.  If  our  intervention  brought  victory  to 
the  cause  of  the  AlHes  a  month  earher  than  it  would 
otherwise  come,  it  would  be  justified. 

I  am  at  one  with  Mr.  Fraley,  who,  in  the  article 
I  have  twice  quoted  from  (36),  said: 

"Why  not  then  take  a  hand  at  redefining,  right 
now,  whilst  our  action  will  be  effective;  saying  to 
the  War  Lord :  'You  have  elected  to  ply  your  trade 
on  these  lines,  but  the  business  is  at  your  peril.  If 
you  should  be  so  unlucky  as  to  shed  American  blood 
upon  neutral  ground,  or  even  in  an  enemy's  territory, 
at  a  point  remote  from  battle  and  without  due  warn- 
ing; or  if  an  American  should  be  harmed,  in  person 
or  property,  by  a  mine  of  yours  upon  the  high  seas; 
we  shall  hold  it  to  be  an  act  of  war.' 

"  'Advise'  our  fellow-neutral,  Holland  (whose 
present  status  is  Germany's  best  asset),  that  it  is  con- 
trary to  the  public  policy  of  the  world  that  Germany 
should  have  the  benefits  of  Dutch  neutrality  for  the 
entrance  of  supplies,  whilst  trampling  on  the  obliga- 
tions of  neutrality  towards  her  next  door  neighbor. 
Prohibit  all  shipments  from  the  United  States  to  Hol- 
land except  upon  the  guarantee  of  the  Dutch  govern- 
ment that  they  shall  not  go  beyond  her  border.  Exert 
all  our  influence  upon  the  public  opinion  of  the  world 
to  denounce  the  War  Lord  as  an  enemy  of  the  human 
race. 

"If  Germany  should  resent  this,  how  could  we 
make  good? 

"Send  our  Atlantic  fleet  to  co-operate  with  the 
Allies  in  closing  the  Baltic,  and  take  along,  as  supply 
ships  and  colliers,  every  German  vessel  now  in  our 
ports.     We  shall  find  some  of  them  loaded  already. 


100    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"What  precedent  exists  for  such  a  notice  and 
demand?  The  mouth  of  the  War  Lord  is  closed  on 
the  subject  of  precedents,  but  if  we  must  have  a  form- 
ula to  go  by,  wherein  would  our  action  differ,  in  spirit, 
from  that  which  we  have  already  done  in  Cuba  and 
in  Mexico? 

"We,  the  great  Neutral  Power  of  the  World, 
who  desire  that  all  neutrality  shall  be  alike  effective 
and  respected,  find  the  situation  intolerable.  W'e 
know  that  the  one  hope  of  stopping  wars,  is  to  supply 
a  world  wide  sanction  for  the  support  of  international 
laws  and  morals." 

I  believe  that  to-day  this  expresses  the  view  of 
a  large  and  rapidly  increasing  number  of  Americans, 
and  that  before  long  the  majority  of  our  people  will 
regard  it  as  the  duty  of  the  President  to  protest 
against  the  disregard  of  treaties  and  the  violation  of 
conventions,  and  to  make  such  protest  so  emphatic  that 
there  can  be  no  doubt  left  in  the  minds  of  the  Kaiser 
and  the  German  people  that  the  sympathies  and,  if  nec- 
essary, the  support  of  the  United  States  are  pledged  to 
the  cause  of  the  Allies. 

Dr.  Charles  Eliot,  President  Emeritus  of  Har- 
vard, in  an  address  on  "America's  Duty  in  Relation 
to  the  European  War"  is  quoted  as  saying  (I  have  not 
yet  seen  the  original  address) :    {Z7) 

"With  Germany,  might  made  right.  She  made  a 
violent  attack  on  the  weaker,  because  it  was  the  short- 
est, the  easiest  way.  What  a  blow  this  was  to  our 
idea  of  mercy,  to  our  conception  of  the  progress  of 


^  ^F.4i?  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     101 

man  from  a  barbarian  to  a  civilized,  fair,  merciful 
being!  We  had  hoped  that  the  methods  of  war  were 
capable  of  amelioration,  but  this  war  has  blown  all 
those  hopes  to  the  winds. 

"All  our  hopes  were  shattered  by  Germany  s  ac- 
tion All  our  American  ideas  of  the  right  to  life, 
liberty,  property,  happiness,  were  nullified  by  this 
nation,  which  is  led  by  a  ruler  who  has  an  archaic 
idea  of  his  powers  and  of  his  relation  to  the  world 
Germany  has  shown  us  that  in  the  most  advanced 
nation,  as  far  as  science  is  concerned,  there  is  no 
place  for  mercy,  no  place  for  good  will  and  that 
hatred  takes  the  place  of  good  motives. 

<'We  must  bear  in  mind  the  deep  obligations 
which  this  nation  is  under  to  England  and  France, 
so  deep  that  it  is  vain  to  expect  us  to  be  m  our  hearts 
neutral.  Can  we  think  of  giving  no  aid  to  France  if 
she  comes  to  the  end  of  her  resources ;  to  England  if 
she  should  be  reduced  to  like  straits? 

"But  let  us  not  confuse  our  minds  by  failing  to 
see  whither  the  German  policy  tends.  Let  us  not 
dream  of  abandoning  our  faith  that  human  relations 
shall  be  determined  by  considerations  of  justice, 
mercy,  love,  and  good  will.  We  must  help  the  Allies 
if  our  assistance  is  requested." 

To  quote  the  usually  pacific  ^Outlook"  (October 
7,  1914),  and  with  most  cordial  approval: 

"To  a  nation  that  acknowledges  no  law  but  its 
own  might,  those  nations  that  have  a  sense  of  honor 
and  regard  their  obligations  as  binding,  can  only  say : 
'If  only  the  sword  will  induce  you  to  keep  your  word 
v.e  shall  have  to  let  the  sword  do  its  work.     It  will 


102    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

be  our  business  to  see  that  the  observance  of  treaties 
which  we  regard  as  a  matter  of  honor,  you  shall  find 
to  be  a  matter  of  self-interest.'  " 

Professor  G.  B.  Adams,  of  Yale,  is  reported  (38) 
to  have  said  recently : 

"So  much  is  at  stake  for  civilization  in  this  war 
that  Germany  must  not  be  allowed  to  win  it,  even  if 
it  becomes  necessary  for  the  United  States  to  enter 
the  conflict  on  the  side  of  the  Allies.  .  .  .  Ger- 
many represents  in  government  and  institutions  an 
obsolescent  system  away  from  which  the  world  has 
been  advancing  for  generations.  .  ,  ,  Germany 
must  be  defeated  in  this  war.  If  it  comes  to  the  point 
when  it  is  necessary  for  the  United  States  to  aid  the 
Allies  to  the  end  that  they  should  win,  then  I  hope  it 
will  be  done.  She  is  opposed  to  everything  for  which 
we  stand,  and  our  turn  would  be  next  if  Germany 
were  successful." 

Mr.    Robert    Bacon,    ex-Ambassador    from    the 
United  States  to  France,  says:  (39) 

"Signs  are  not  wanting  that  the  people  of  this 
country  are  unwilling  to  submit  much  longer  to  the 
injunction  laid  upon  them  that  our  neutrality  should 
impose  upon  us  silence  regarding  aspects  of  the  Euro- 
pean war  with  which  we  have  a  vital  concern.  There 
are  many  men  who  consider  that  this  nation  is  shirk- 
ing its  duty  by  maintaining  a  policy  which  may  be  in- 
terpreted as  giving  tacit  assent  to  acts  involving  us 
morally  and  much  more  intimately  than  has  yet  been 
expressed.     These  men  believe  that  we  have  a  high 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     103 

responsibility  in  upholding  the  treaties  which  were 
signed  at  the  Second  Conference  at  The  Hague  in 
1907  and  ratified  by  the  United  States  and  the  na- 
tions now  at  war.     ... 

"In  The  Hague  convention  referred  to  we  have  a 
real  and  intimate  concern.  That  convention  was 
signed  by  the  delegates  from  the  United  States  and 
ratified  by  the  United  States  government,  and  it  was 
signed  and  ratified  by  Germany,  making  it  a  treaty 
between  Germany  and  the  United  States,  in  which 
the  other  ratifying  Powers  were  joined. 

"In  admittedly  violating  Articles  I  and  II  of  that 
convention  Germany  broke  a  treaty  she  had  solemnly 
made  and  entered  into  with  the  United  States. 

"Are  we  to  suffer  a  nation  to  break  a  treaty 
with  us,  on  whatever  pretext,  without  entering,  at 
least,  a  formal  protest?  Will  anyone  contend  that 
our  neutrality  imposes  silence  upon  us  under  such 
conditions?  Are  The  Hague  conventions  to  become 
'scraps  of  paper'  without  a  single  word  of  protest 
from  this  government?  If  the  treaties  which  we  made 
at  The  Hague  are  to  be  so  lightly  regarded,  then  why 
not  all  our  other  treaties?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is 
our  solemn  duty  to  protest  against  a  violation  of 
pledges  formally  entered  into  between  this  govern- 
ment and  any  other  government,  and  we  assume  a 
heavy  moral  responsibility  when  we  remain  silent.  In 
this  crisis,  particularly,  other  nations  look  to  us  and 
never,  perhaps,  has  our  example  had  greater  force." 


Professor  Henry  M.  Howe,  of  Columbia  Univer- 
sity, has  expressed  (40)  as  follows  the  alternatives 
open  to  the  United  States : 


104    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"Are  there  not  two  courses  now  open  to  us  which 
may  direct  the  course  of  human  affairs  for  centuries  ; 
the  first  to  be  neutral,  while  revictualling  and  rearm- 
ing Germany  as  far  as  is  possible  through  Holland 
and  Scandinavia,  and  thereby  increasing  the  chance  of 
her  reaching  a  position  in  which  she  can  later  conquer 
us  and  the  rest  of  the  planet,  and  meanwhile  force 
us  to  become  primarily  military  instead  of  industrial ; 
the  second  to  join  the  Allies  and  prevent  Germany 
reaching  that  position,  not  only  directly  by  our 
strength,  but  still  more  by  withholding  from  her  those 
supplies  of  food,  ammunition  and  gasolene  without 
which  she  must  yield? 

"Germany  having  now  disclosed  her  wish  to  rule 
the  planet,  does  she  not  know  that  this  war  will  de- 
cide either  that  she  shall  reach  a  position  in  which  she 
can  carry  out  that  wish  or  that  the  rest  of  the  world 
recognizing  this  to  be  her  wish,  will  combine  to  pre- 
vent her  in  perpetuity  from  reaching  that  position  ? 

"And  is  not  this  knowledge  one  sufficient  reason 
for  her  anxiety  for  our  good  will,  lest  we  aid  the 
Allies  to  prevent  her  reaching  it? 

"If  we  are  to  have  a  world  alliance  for  restrain- 
ing military  aggression,  should  not  that  alliance  be 
formed  now  rather  than  after  the  subjugation  of  the 
Allies  shall  have  left  no  unsubjugated  civilized  pow- 
ers collectively  strong  enough  to  restrain  Germany? 
The  world's  present  power  to  crush  the  aggressor 
suffices.  If  we  allow  this  war  to  go  against  the  Allies, 
shall  we  not  thereby  lose  perhaps  the  last  golden  op- 
portunity? 

"If  our  danger  seems  remote,  is  not  that  because 
we  have  not  given  it  thought? 

"If  the  great  work  of  the  Allies  is  to  prevent 
Germany  becoming  irresistible,  is  not  this  as  neces- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     105 

sary  to  our  preservation  as  to  theirs?  If  so,  do  not 
honor  and  dignity  call  on  us  to  assume  our  share  in 
the  burden  of  this  prevention?" 

The  Hague  Conventions  of  1899  and  1907,  with 
the  annexed  regulations,  were  signed  by  the  direction 
of  Colonel  Roosevelt,  then  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  expressed  the  practically  unanimous  senti- 
ments of  our  people. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  now  writes:    (41) 

"Most  emphatically  I  would  not  have  per- 
mitted such  a  farce  to  go  through  if  it  had  en- 
tered my  head  that  this  government  would  not 
consider  itself  bound  to  do  all  it  could  to  see  that  the 
regulations  to  which  it  made  itself  a  party  were  act- 
ually observed  when  the  necessity  for  their  observ- 
ance arose.  ...  Of  the  present  neutral  powers 
the  United  States  of  America  is  the  most  disinter- 
ested and  the  strongest,  and  should,  therefore,  bear 
the  main  burden  of  the  responsibility  in  this  matter. 
.  .  .  If  they  (The  Hague  Conventions)  meant 
anything,  if  the  United  States  had  a  serious  purpose,  a 
serious  sense  of  its  obligations  to  world  righteousness 
when  it  entered  into  them  then  its  plain  duty  (after 
proof  of  their  violation  has  been  obtained)  is  to  take 
whatever  action  may  be  necessary  to  vindicate  the 
principles  of  intemational  law  set  forth  in  those  con- 
ventions." 

Professor  William  Gardner  Hale,  of  Chicago, 
says  (42)  that  as  the  second  Hague  Conference  dealt 
with  neutral  powers  everywhere  in  the  world,  and  as 


106    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

the  agreement  declared  their  territory  "inviolable," 
and  as  this  was  agreed  to  by  forty-two  other  powers 
(in  addition  to  Germany  and  the  United  States),  Ger- 
many's act  in  breaking  the  law  did  not  concern  Eng- 
land, France,  Belgium  and  herself  alone,  it  concerned 
us.  "It  was  not  merely  a  shameful  act  toward  a  brave 
but  weak  state,  it  zvas  an  oifence  to  us." 
Professor  Hale  continues : 

"In  a  given  country  there  is  force  to  maintain 
the  laws.  As  between  countries,  there  has  been  no 
means.  There  is,  in  the  technical  phrase,  no  sanc- 
tion. It  is  absolutely  essential  that  there  should  be 
a  sanction.  There  never  can  be  any  except  force. 
That  cannot  be  the  force  of  the  combatants.  They 
are  already  engaged  with  all  their  might  in  the 
struggle.  The  law  breaker  will  go  on  breaking.  If  he 
wins  there  will  never  even  be  any  punishment.  Our 
President  has  said  that  these  questions  will  be  taken 
up  at  the  end  of  the  war  at  The  Hague.  But  if  Ger- 
many wins  there  will  never  be  any  conference  at  The 
Hague.  The  Hague  will  be  at  the  War  Office  in  Ber- 
lin, and  there  will  be  no  admission. 

"If  the  Allies  conquer  there  will  be  a  conference. 
The  forty-four  powers  will  take  part.  But  even  so, 
there  can  never  be  any  security  against  further  law 
breaking,  except  that  powers  which  are  strangers  to 
the  dispute  should,  the  moment  there  is  sure  violation 
of  the  laws  of  war,  throw  in  their  strength  against  the 
guilty  side.  It  will  have  to  be  some  powerful  nation, 
or  nations,  that  do  this.  We  are  such  a  nation.  Our 
fleet  is  the  third  in  the  world,  though  our  army  is 
small.  Our  resources,  if  brought  into  operation,  are 
great.    We  are  also  a  determined  people. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     107 

"This  is  no  small  quarrel.     The  fate  of  the  world 
hangs  upon  it.    That  vvhich  we  ought  some  day  to  do 
we  should  do  now ;  should  have  done  already.   Tech- 
nical reasons,  as  well  as  moral  reasons,  we  have  in 
abundance.      Solemn    treaties    made    'between    the 
United  States  and  other  powers,'  including  Germany, 
have  been  broken  by  her.     The  breaking  of  a  treaty 
is  always  a  sufficient  reason  for  a  declaration  of  war 
if  the  offended  party  desires.     We  had  a  sufficient 
reason  on  the  day  on  which  the  text  of  the  German 
ultimatum  to  Belgium  was  published,  even  if  we  were 
doubtful   about   the   ridiculous   reason   given.      Ger- 
many's announcement  that,  if  Belgium  resisted  the 
violation  of  her  territory,  Germany  would  regard  her 
resistance  as  a  hostile  act,  and  treat  the  relations  of 
the  two  countries  thereafter  according  to  the  arbitra- 
ment of  war,  was  enough.    When  precious  historical 
monuments,  which  are  in  a  very  true  sense  the  prop- 
erty of  all  mankind,  began  to  be  destroyed  or  to  be 
gravely  injured  there  was  again  enough..    When  an 
unfortified   and   undefended   town   was    three    times 
bombarded    there    was    again    enough.       When    the 
peaceful   vessels  of  neutrals,  as  well  as  vessels  of 
war,  began  to  be  blown  up  by  floating  mines  there 
was'  once  more  enough.     And,  even  if  we  did  not 
make  war,  it  was  our  duty  at  the  very  least  to  address 
a  temperate  protest  to  Germany.     We  did  not  pro- 
test    The  love  of  fair  play  is  inherent  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  as  well  as  in  most  others.    Even  a  crowd 
at  a  prizefight  or  a  game  will  not  tolerate  repeated 
and  deliberate  foul  play  and  wait  to  the  end  m  the 
hope  of  adjudication.     It  will  promptly  drag  the  of- 
fending party  out  of  the  ring.     But  we  do  nothmg. 
"We  are  not  a  military  nation  and  are  not  pre- 
pared.    But  our  navy  could  at  once  have  patrolled 


108    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

the  seas  and  given  security  in  the  Atlantic.  We  could 
have  kept  the  communications  between  France  and 
England  open.  A\'e  could  have  guarded  the  English 
harbors.  We  could  have  set  the  English  fleet  en- 
tirely free  to  do  its  most  important  work,  if  it  is  in 
any  way  possible  to  do  it — namely,  to  destroy  the 
German  navy.  That  once  gone,  Germany  could  never 
have  built  another  until  after  peace  was  declared. 
She  would  have  been  heavily  crippled.  A  declaration 
of  war  from  us  would  also  have  at  once  shut  off  all 
American  food  from  reaching  Germany  by  any  chan- 
nel. We  could  also  have  sent  at  once  a  small  army 
to  the  field.  There  w^as  a  time  when  a  small  addi- 
tional force  would  have  made  a  difference.  We  could 
have  asked  for  volunteers.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
would  have  offered  themselves.  We  were  not  pre- 
pared, but  Germany  would  have  known  that  we  were 
preparing.  She  would  have  seen  that  her  cause  was 
hopeless." 

These  quotations,  representing  the  views  of  an 
ex-President  of  the  United  States,  an  ex-President  of 
Harvard,  an  ex- Ambassador,  a  Yale  professor,  a  Chi- 
cago professor,  a  Columbia  professor  and  a  Philadel- 
phia lawyer,  must  serve  to  indicate  the  reasons  for  my 
belief  that  American  public  opinion  now  tends  to  favor 
some  form  of  intervention,  not  from  quarrelsomeness, 
certainly  not  for  selfish  motives  or  from  desire  for  ag- 
grandizement, but  chiefly  from  the  wish  to  have  our 
country  discharge  a  great  international  duty,  thrust 
upon  us  by  the  irresistible  force  of  circumstances,  a 
duty,  the  proper  discharge  of  which  would  make  hu- 
manity our  debtor  for  ages  to  come. 


XI 

What  are  the  interests  of  America  at  tJiis  tiinef 

I  think  many  Americans  must  have  blushed  when 
they  read  Mr.  Champ  Clark's  speech  early  in  Septem- 
ber and  saw  that  he  had  said  that  we  wanted  to  "en- 
courage peace-making  in  the  old  world  partly  out  of 
motives  of  humanity,  but  largely  because  we  do  not 
want  to  be  injured."  He  certainly  did  not  speak  for 
the  American  people  in  placing  that  motive  above  all 
others. 

Yet  it  is  right  that  we  should  ask :  ^\'hat  may  we 
expect  if  German}^  is  victorious  in  this  war? 

We  know  the  principles  for  which  she  stands. 
We  know  her  disregard  for  obligations,  spoken  or 
written.  We  know  her  intention  to  gain  "World 
Power"  at  any  cost.  Have  we  any  reason  to  think 
that  she  would  respect  us,  our  wishes,  our  persons,  our 
property  ? 

Dr.  Dernburg,  the  ex-Colonial  Secretary,  was,  a 
few  days  ago,  understood  to  have  declared  that  Ger- 
many had  announced  its  recognition  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  (43)  The  Monroe  Doctrine,  as  every  Amer- 
ican knows,  dates  back  to  1828,  w^hen  "certain  Euro- 
pean Powers  showed  signs  of  wishing  to  help  Spain 
recover  her  lost  American  colonies."    President  Mon- 

(109) 


no    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

roe  said:  "We  owe  it  therefore  to  candor  .  .  .  . 
to  declare  that  we  consider  any  attempt  on  their  part 
to  extend  their  S3^stem  to  any  portion  of  this  hemi- 
sphere as  dangerous  to  our  peace  and  safety."  That 
is  the  important  part  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Fortu- 
nately the  republics  of  South  America  have  attained 
such  size  and  strength  that  the  further  statement  that 
we  could  not  permit  anyone  to  "oppress  them"  or  to 
"control  their  destiny"  might  now  well  be  modified  to 
read  that  we  would  gladly  aid  them,  if  they  needed  aid, 
in  resisting  any  such  attempt. 

Dr.  Dernburg's  statement  was  to  be  understood 
as  an  assurance  that  Germany  did  not  intend  to  estab- 
lish colonies  in  this  hemisphere. 

A  little  latter  our  State  Department  issued  an  an- 
nouncement to  the  efifect  that  the  German  Ambassador. 
Count  von  Bernstorff,  had  on  September  3,  1914,  in  a 
note  to  the  department  "stated  that  he  w^as  instructed 
by  his  Government  to  deny  most  emphatically  the 
rumors  to  the  effects  that  Germany  intends,  in  case  she 
comes  out  victorious  in  the  present  war,  to  seek  expan- 
sion in  South  America." 

.    As  "The  Outlook"  observes  (November  4,  1914)  : 

"The  sweeping  statement  of  Dr.  Dernburg  is 
thus  reduced  to  an  official  expression  concerning 
Germany's  intention  with  regard  to  South  America. 
Thus  it  is  seen  that  there  was  no  pledge  offered,  but 
merely  an  expression  of  intention.  And  Americans 
must  remember  that  intentions  change.  In  the  sec- 
ond place  it  related,  not  to  the  whole  of  the  Western 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     111 

Hemisphere,  but  merely  to  South  America.  What 
Germany's  intentions  are  with  regard  to  North 
America,  including  Canada  and  the  West  Indies,  was 
left  to  American  imagination. 

"But  not  for  long.  One  day  later  there  was  pub- 
lished a  further  statement  by  Dr.  Dernburg,  and  a 
statement  by  the  German  Ambassador,  Count  von 
Bernstorfif." 


The  latter  said  that  a  German  invasion  of  Canada 
for  a  temporary  foothold  on  this  continent  would  not 
violate  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  Dr.  Dernburg  said 
that  by  sending  Canadian  troops  to  the  war,  "Canada 
had  placed  herself  beyond  the  pale  of  American  pro- 
tection." 

He  took  pains  to  add  that  Germany  would,  how- 
ever, extend  her  respect  for  South  American  territory 
to  that  of  our  neighbor  to  the  north. 

But  can  Americans  afford  to  believe  them?  The 
papers  are  already  asking  whether  "in  the  light  cast 
upon  German  international  policy  by  the  Ems  dispatch 
— forged  or  doctored,  as  one  may  choose  to  call  it — by 
Bismarck  to  bring  on  the  Franco-German  war  of  1870- 
71,  and  by  the  "scrap  of  paper"  incident  in  this  war, 
we  can  afford  to  adopt  any  policy  in  relation  to  Ger- 
many but  that  of  extreme  watchful  waiting  and  pre- 
paredness for  whatever  events  may  happen  in  the  near 
future." 

I  agree  with  the  London  "Spectator"  (September 
26,  1914)  : 


112     A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

"Strange  as  it  will  sound  to  most  American  ears 
.  .  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  at  this  moment 
what  stands  between  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  its 
complete  destruction  are  our  ships  in  the  North  Sea 
and  the  battle-wear}%  mud-stained  men  in  the  British 
and  French  trenches  on  the  Aisne." 


We  can  get  some  information  as  to  the  probabili- 
ties in  this  direction  from  other  sources.  We  have 
seen  how  accurately  Bernhardi  and  Treitschke  fore- 
cast the  immediate  future  in  their  writings.  There 
were  other  prophets  in  their  country.  The  late  Mr. 
W.  T.  Arnold,  grandson  of  Arnold  of  Rugby,  in  a  sum- 
mary of  the  "German  Professorial  Campaign," 
quotes  as  follows  from  Dr.  W.  Wintzer's  book,  "Die 
Deutschen  in  Tropischen  Amerika" : 


"The  moral  core  of  the  Monroe  doctrine  van- 
ished on  the  day  when  the  document  concerning  the 
annexation  of  the  Philippines  was  signed  by  Mc- 
Kinley."  He  (Wintzer)  claims  "the  right  to  confront 
this  Greater-American  doctrine  with  a  Greater-Ger- 
man one" ;  and  adds :  "Equality  of  treatment  with  the 
United  States  in  South  America — that  is  the  theory 
which  we  both  on  principle  and  as  occasion  serves, 
must  oppose  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  which,  too, 
should  the  moment  come,  we  must  defend  by  force" 
"The  American  order  of  'Hands  Off!'  in 
South  America  must  be  answered  in  the  negative. 

"Two  of  the  Pan-German  prophets  of  the  future, 
'Germania  Triumphans'  and  Dr.  Eisenhart,  represent 
Germany  as  fighting  against  both  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  but  fighting  against  them  separately. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     113 

In  GermarAa  Triumphans,  the  United  States  are  first 
attacked  and  defeated  by  both  sea  and  land,  and  Brit- 
ain is  represented  as  chuckle-headed  enough,  and 
base  enough  to  look  on  and  do  nothing.  Then  comes 
Britain's  turn.  The  only  difference  in  Dr.  Eisen- 
hart's  vaticination  of  the  future  is  that  Germany  take 
Britain  first  and  the  United  States  look  on.  Britain 
is  disposed  of,  'and  now'  says  the  prophet,  'it  was 
time  to  reckon  with  America.'  Not  even  these  half- 
sane  Pan-Germans  contemplate  the  possibility  of  deal- 
ing with  Britain  and  the  United  States  together." 

Price  Collier  (Op.  cit.,  p.  547)  says: 

"In  discussing  Senator  Lodge's  resolution  before 
the  United  States  Senate,  on  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
the  German  press  spoke  of  us  as  'hirnverbrannte 
Yankees,'  'bornierte  Yankee-Gehirne,  ('crazy  Yank- 
ees,' 'provincial  Yankee  intellects')  ;  and  the  words 
'Dollarika,'  'Dollarei,'  and  'Dollarman,'  are  further 
malicious  expressions  of  their  envy  frequently  used." 

Schmoller,  the  political  economist,  writes : 

"We  must  at  all  costs  hope  for  the  formation  in 
Southern  Brazil,  of  a  State  with  twenty  or  thirty  mil- 
ions. 

It  is  obvious,  at  this  moment,  showing  through 
the  recent  ''statements"  and  "announcements"  of  the 
highly  placed  Germans  whom  I  have  quoted,  that  at 
least  the  possibility  of  Germany's  disregard  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  is  present  in  their  minds.     Circum- 


114    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

stances  enjoin  caution.  Americans  are  to  be  placated 
— just  now — not  irritated  or  alarmed.  Bernhardi, 
Treitschke,  Wintzer,  Eisenhart,  Schmoller  are  to  be 
repudiated. 

But  in  view  of  her  callous  and  brutal  disregard  of 
formal  obligations,  entered  into  with  the  majority  of 
the  civilized  nations  of  the  world,  and  in  view  of  the 
many  other  reasons  (p.  83)  for  doubting  the  relia- 
bility of  German  statements  at  this  time,  can  any 
American  contemplate  with  equanimity  the  possibility 
of  this  war  ending  in  a  Germania  Triumphansf 

Is  that  a  prospect  which,  in  view  of  what  we  know 
of  the  purpose,  interest,  determination,  not  only  of  the 
military  caste,  but,  at  least  for  a  time,  of  the  whole 
nation,  Americans  can  regard  with  indifference  or  a 
condition  which  they  can  await  with  serenity  ? 

Ferrero,  the  Italian  philosophical  historian,  prac- 
tically answers  that  question  when  he  says  (44) : 

"This  war  will  either  increase  still  more  the 
military  caste  in  Gemiany  or  will  largely  destroy  it. 
Germany  is  moved  to  the  conflict  with  the  expecta- 
tion of  repeating  1870 :  that  is  of  making  a  rapid 
victorious  campaign,  the  cost  of  which  will  be  cov- 
ered by  the  immense  indemnities  imposed  upon  the 
conquered.  And  if  the  General  Staff  succeeds  in  this 
enterprise,  the  German  army,  and  the  HohenzoUerns 
who  are  its  leaders,  will  achieve  such  prestige  in  Ger- 
many, in  Europe,  and  in  the  world,  that  no  strength 
can  oppose  them." 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     115 

But  Professor  Hale  still  more  fully  and  specific- 
ally answers  the  question  (loc.  cit.) : 

"What  do  we  Americans  pray  for  as  the  issue 
of  this  great  struggle?  Russia  is  autocratic,  but  she 
has  abundantly  produced  men  who  eagerly  suffered 
martyrdom  for  freedom.  Germany  did  once,  but  has 
stopped.  Nor  does  German  America  seem  any  longer 
to  raise  up  citizens  of  the  Carl  Schurz  kind,  who 
rebelled  against  this  very  bureaucratic  militarism  that 
has  produced  the  war,  England,  France  and  Belgium 
are  democratic  countries.  Miinsterberg  (page  205) 
speaks  of  'the  tremendous  increase  of  the  monarch- 
ical conviction.'  Von  Biilow,  for  twelve  years  Ger- 
man Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  quotes  with 
approval,  in  his  just  published  'Imperial  Germany,' 
the  statement,  'German  parliaments,  in  a  compara- 
tively short  space  of  time,  mostly  sink  to  the  level  of 
a  district  council,'  and  expresses  his  own  conceptions 
in  such  sentences  as  :  'In  history  strong  military  States 
have  always  required  monarchical  guidance,'  and 
'In  foreign  as  well  as  home  politics  I  considered  it 
my  noblest  task  to  the  best  of  my  understanding  and 
ability  to  strengthen,  protect  and  support  the  crown, 
not  only  on  account  of  deep  loyalty  and  personal 
affection  for  the  wearer,  but  also  because  I  see  in 
the  crown  the  cornerstone  of  Prussia  and  the  key- 
stone of  the  empire.'  As  for  Austria,  it  was  against 
this  very  Francis  Joseph  that  Cavour  planned,  and 
Garibaldi  fought,  for  Italian  liberty.  Which  type  of 
ideas  do  we  want  to  see  succeed? 

"The  victory  of  the  Allies  would  mean  an  Eng- 
lish England,  a  French  France,  an  Italian  Italy,  a  Rus- 
sian Russia,  a  German  Germany.     It  would  mean  a 


116    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

Europe  of  free  nations,  each  developing-  its  own  char- 
acteristics and  ideals.  Germany  would  not,  I  hope 
and  believe,  even  lose  her  foreign  possessions,  except 
the  little  one  taken  from  China,  which  should  be 
handed  back.  But  she  should  be  made  to  restore 
Schleswig-Holstein  to  Denmark  and  Alsace-Lorraine 
to  France.  She  should  be  made  to  take  her  place 
as  one  of  the  family  of  equal  nations,  and  not  its 
mistress.  And  we  should  lend  our  strength  at  once, 
as  well  as  our  good  wishes,  to  this  end. 

"The  victory  of  Germany  and  Austria  would 
mean  a  Germanized  and  bureaucratically  controlled 
England,  France,  Russia  and  Italy;  for  Italy  would 
not  survive.  It  would  be  a  world  intolerable  to  live  in, 
and  intolerable  for  an  American  to  think  about.  But 
thinking  about  it  is  not  the  only  thing  that  he  would 
suffer. 

"The  victory  of  Germany  would  put  at  her  dis- 
posal an  enormous  fleet,  consisting  of  all  the  ships 
that  survived  the  war.  Her  ambition  would  not  be 
sated.  She  aims  at  nothing  less  than  world  dominion. 
'Deutschland  iiber  alles'  does  not  mean  'with  the 
exception  of  the  United  States.'  She  has  known  how 
to  attack  us.  The  moment  she  had  a  trained  German 
personnel  for  her  immense  navy,  South  America,  or 
as  much  as  she  wanted  of  it  from  time  to  time,  would 
become  a  German  colony.  The  nucleus  already  exists 
in  Brazil,  and  could  easily  enough  produce  an  excuse 
for  war  if  one  was  thought  desirable  for  historical 
purposes.  To  the  winds  would  go  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine and  South  American  freedom.  We,  with  our 
then  relatively  tiny  navy,  should  be  helpless,  either 
to  keep  Germany  off  or  to  dislodge  her.  From 
South  America  she  would  strike  at  us.  Our  coasts 
would  be  at  her  mercy,  and  she  could  land  her  dis- 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     117 

ciplined  troops  anywhere.    The  country  would  be  full 
of  spies,   as   France   and   Belgium   are  to-day.     We 
should  fight  desperately,  and  our  land  is  of  great  ex- 
tent.   But  only  disciplined  armies  can  prevail  in  these 
times.     Gueril'la  warfare  is  useless.     Fighting  would 
be  done  here  by  railroads  and  the  reduction  of  great 
centres.     The  population  of  Germany  and  Austria  is 
to-day  larger  than  ours  by  some  sixteen  millions ;  and 
Germ'any,  then  the  mistress  of  Europe,  could  safely 
bring  an  army  into  the  field  from  many  quarters,  both 
of  Europe  and  South  America.     The  struggle  would 
be  bitter.    We  should  have  the  advantage  in  distance; 
but  the  ocean  is  narrow  to-day,  as  the  presence  of 
soldiers  from  all  parts  of  the  world  on  the  battlefields 
of  France  has  shown  us.    And  Germany  would  have 
every  other  possible  start  upon  us. 

"This  is  no  idle  speculation.     It  is  no  more  a 
nightmare  than  was  the  possibility  of  a  Germanized 
Europe  a  few  months  ago.     A\'e  should  stop  it  all  by 
throwing  our  strength  now  upon  the  side  of  the  Allies. 
"I  have  put  my  arguments  on  the  basis  of  Ger- 
many's breaking  of  international  law.    But  I  will  put 
it  also  on  another  basis.     War  must  come  to  an  end. 
It  does  not  belong  to  our  generation  or  to  civilization. 
Convention  1  of  The  Hague  does  not  make  it  com- 
pulsory for  any  country  to  arbitrate  a  dispute,  such 
as  that  between  Austria  and  SerA'ia,  if  it  does  not 
wish  to.     But  it  also  does  not  forbid  any  power  in 
the  world  to  fall  upon  the  aggressor.    The  American 
people  know  who  was  the  aggressor,  just  as  Italy 
knew.     We  have  had  the  statements  of  both  sides. 
That  guilty  government  should  be  taught  that  a  mon- 
strous war  of  aggression  will  never  in  the  future  be 
tolerated.     Such  a  lesson  would  go  very  far  to  stop 
all  wars." 


118    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

I  need  dwell  no  longer  upon  this  point. 

Both  duty  and  self-interest  should  lead  America 
to  make  sure  at  whatever  sacrifice  that  German  mili- 
tarism does  not  in  the  outrageous  war  which  it  has 
precipitated,  triumph  over  the  democratic  ideals  for 
which  little  Belgium  has  almost  laid  down  her  national 
existence,  for  which — under  whatever  nominal  form 
of  government — the  Allies  are  valiantly  fighting,  and 
for  which  we  as  well  as  they  should  be  ready  to  make 
any  sacrifice  of  life  or  treasure  that  may  be  needed. 

I  believe — to  quote  "The  Outlook"  once  more 
(October  21,  1914)— that— 

"As  theocracy,  or  the  attempt  to  make  men 
righteous  by  force  failed  in  the  New  England  col- 
onies ;  as  serfdom  and  slavery,  or  the  attempt  to  make 
men  industrious  by  force,  failed  in  Russia  and  the 
United  States;  as  feudalism,  or  the  attempt  to  make 
men  loyal  and  chivalrous  by  force,  failed  in  England ; 
and  as  the  spirit  of  materialistic  revolution,  or  the 
attempt  to  make  men  liberal-minded  and  intellectually 
free  by  force,  failed  in  France — so  the  doctrine  of 
Machtpolitik,  the  attempt  by  Germany  to  impose  a 
civilization  upon  humanity  by  force ,  must  fail — must 
be  made  to  fail." 


XII 

What  in  the  light  of  this  zvar  should  be  the  aim  of 
this  and  other  civilised  countries  for  the  future? 

A.  To  this  final  question  I  would  reply  m  the 
words  of  Colonel  Roosevelt,  in  a  recent  article  on 
"What  America  Should  Learn  From  the  War": 
(45) 

"What  is  needed  in  international  matters  is  to 
create  a  judge,  and  then  to  put  police  power  back 

of  the  judge.     ... 

"The  one  permanent  move  for  obtainmg  peace 
which  has  yet  been  suggested,  with  any  reasonable 
chance  of  attaining  its  object,   is  by  an  agreement 
among  the  great  powers,  in  which  each  should  pledge 
itself  not  only  to  abide  by  the  decisions  of  a  common 
tribunal,  but  to  back  with  force  the  decisions  of  that 
common  tribunal.     The  great  civilized  nations  of  the 
world  which  do  possess  force,  actual  or  immediately 
potential,  should  combine  by  solemn  agreement  in  a 
great  World  League  for  the  Peace  of  Righteousness. 
A  court  should  be  created— a  changed  and  amplified 
•Hague  court  would  meet  the  requirements— composed 
of  representatives  from  each  nation;  these  representa- 
tives being  sworn  to  act  in  each  case  as  judges,  pure 
and  simple,  and  not  in  a  representative  capacity.  The 
nations  should  agree  on  certain  rights  that  should  not 
be  questioned,  such  as  their  territorial  integrity,  their 
rio-hts  to  deal  with  their  own  domestic  affairs  and  with 

(119) 


120    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

such  matters  as  whom  they  should  or  should  not 
admit  to  residence  and  citizenship  within  their  own 
borders.  All  should  guarantee  each  of  their  number 
in  the  possession  of  these  rights.  All  should  agree 
that  other  matters  at  issue  between  any  of  them,  or 
between  any  of  them  and  any  one  of  a  number  of 
specified  outside  civilized  nations,  should  be  submitted 
to  the  court  as  above  constituted.  They  should, 
furthermore,  agree  not  only  to  abide,  each  of  them, 
by  the  decision  of  the  court,  but  all  of  them  to  unite 
with  their  military  forces  to  enforce  the  decree  of 
the  court,  as  against  any  recalcitrant  member.  Under 
these  circumstances,  it  would  be  possible  to  agree  on 
a  limitation  of  armaments  that  would  be  real  and 
effective. 

"If  any  nation  were  unwilling  to  go  into  such  a 
general  agreement  with  other  nations,  it  would  of 
necessity  have  to  depend  upon  its  own  armed  strength 
for  its  own  protection.  This  is  the  only  alternative. 
Treaties  unbacked  by  force  cannot  be  considered  as 
an  alternative  by  any  sober  persons  of  sound  judg- 
ment.    .     .     . 

"Such  a  scheme  as  the  one  briefly  outlined  will 
not  bring  perfect  justice  any  more  than  under  munic- 
ipal law  we  obtain  perfect  justice;  but  it  will  mark 
an  immeasurable  advance  on  anything  now  existing; 
for  it  will  mean  that  at  last  a  long  stride  has  been 
taken  in  the  effort  to  put  the  collective  strength  of 
civilized  mankind  behind  the  collective  purpose  of 
mankind  to  secure  the  peace  of  righteousness,  the 
peace  of  justice  among  the  nations  of  the  earth." 


SUMMARY 

Reviewing  what  I  have  written  and,  more  partic- 
ularly, what  I  have  collated,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have 
given  a  justifiable  basis  for  the  following  opinions : 

The  war  is  a  German-made  war,  having  its  source 
and  inspiration  in  the  writings  and  teachings  of  the 
Pan-Germanists ;  in  the  ambitions  of  an  autocratic 
military  caste,  headed  by  a  highly  neurotic,  unbal- 
anced, and  possibly  mentally  diseased  overlord,  with 
mediaeval  views  of  his  relation  to  his  country  and  the 
world,  and  supported  by  a  subservient  corps  of 
"learned  men,"  the  majority  of  whom  are  paid  serv- 
ants of  the  State. 

The  war  in  the  last  analysis  was  made  possible  by 
the  megalomania  of  a  preponderating  section  of  the 
German  people  and  by  the  carefully  nurtured  and  fo- 
mented desire  for  World  Power. 

To  bring  about  this  condition  that  People  has 
been  made  to  believe  in  the  superiority — which  does 
not  exist— of  German  civilization  to  all  other  civiliza- 
tions; in  the  pre-eminence — equally  non-existent — of 
German  "culture";  in  the  theory  that  Might  makes 
Right,  and  that  it  is  only  in  the  course  of  Nature  that 
weaker— and  therefore  presumably  inferior — peoples 
should  yield  their  ideals,  their  liberties,  and  their  des- 
tinies into  the  hands  of  any  nation  that  by  the  arbitra- 

(121) 


122    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

ment  of  War  should  prove  itself  the  master  of  all 
others. 

As  a  logical  result  of  these  views,  at  a  time  se- 
lected by  reason  of  the  undoubted  preparedness  of 
Germany,  the  supposed  unreadiness  and  internal  trou- 
bles of  other  nations,  and  the  growing  burden  of  the 
German  military  and  naval  armaments,  the  war  was 
precipitated,  on  a  relatively  trivial  and  entirely  avoid- 
able pretext,  the  other  great  countries  then  concerned, 
England,  Russia  and  France,  having  shown  up  to  the 
last  moment  an  honest  and  sincere  desire  for  peace. 

As  an  immediate  step  toward  the  attainment  of 
her  purpose  Germany  violated  a  solemn  contract  en- 
tered into  deliberately,  seventy-five  years  ago,  and 
affirmed  and  re-affirmed  by  her  representatives  almost 
up  to  the  date  of  its  abrupt,  but  deliberate  and  unde- 
nied  infraction. 

As  a  result  of  this  action  and  of  the  resistance 
properly  offered,  in  conformity  with  the  very  treaty 
which  Germany  had  contemptuously  disregarded  and 
set  aside,  the  world  has  witnessed  with  horror  the 
brutal  despoilment,  occupation,  almost  the  annihila- 
tion, of  a  brave,  innocent,  unoffending,  highly  civilized 
and  industrious  country  by  an  adversary  whose  only 
right  in  so  doing  rested  on  the  might  it  was  able  to 
bring  to  bear. 

In  spite  of  the  war's  stupendous  proportions,  the 
immensity  of  its  scope  and  area,  and  the  diverse  and 
conflicting  interests  involved,  the  principles  at  stake 
are  easily  recognizable. 


A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS     123 

Germany  and  her  more  or  less  insignificant  and 
contemptible  tools,  Austria  and  Turkey,  represent  ab- 
solutism, militarism,  feudalism,  medisevalism,  despot- 
ism, autocracy.  The  "Monarchical  idea"  is  a  disin- 
genuous  substitute  for  these  terms,  with  which,  how- 
ever, it  is  in  essence  synonymous. 

The  Allies  are  fighting  for  democratic  liberty,  for 
representative  government,  for  the  equal  rights  of  in- 
dividuals, whether  relatively  insignificant  persons  or 
relatively  powerless  States. 

So  far  as  America  is  concerned,  Germany  and  her 
parasites  stand  for  everything  in  which  we  do  not  be- 
lieve. The  Allies  represent — and  are  fighting,  starv- 
ing and  dying  for — everything  that  makes  American 
liberty,  happiness  and  independence  possible. 

Our  technical  position  is  one  of  "neutrality,"  but 
our  overwhelming  sympathy  is  with  the  Allies. 

Our  technical  grievance  lies  in  Germany's  delib- 
erate flouting  of  conventions  of  which  we  were,  with 
her,  a  signatory;  our  real  grievance  rests  on  the 
danger  to  humanity,  to  the  ideas  that  lie  at  the  very 
foundation  of  our  republic,  to  our  own  future  security, 
that  would  attend  the  success  of  Germany  in  this  war. 

Our  duties  and  our  interests  coincide. 

We  should  at  the  very  least  strengthen  the  waver- 
ing, reassure  the  doubting,  give  new  hope  to  the  des- 
pairing by  proclaiming  to  the  world  our  absolute  and 
unreserved  belief  in  the  right  and  justice  of  the  cause 
of  the  Allies,  and  our  determination  to  see  to  it,  should 
the  worst  come  to  them,  that  they  shall  have  our  mate- 


124    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

rial  support  to  our  last  dollar,  our  last  bushel  of  corn, 
our  last  drop  of  blood. 

But  better  it  would  seem  to  many  of  us,  and  in  the 
long  run  more  truly  merciful,  if  we  now,  on  the  basis 
of  Germany's  admitted  and  open  disregard  of  solemn 
obligations  entered  into  zvitJi  us,  determined  to  cast  the 
weight  of  our  available  force — whatever  it  may  be — 
into  the  scale.  For  one,  I  believe  it  would  be  enough 
to  determine  the  result  and  save  tens  of  thousands  of 
useful  lives,  months  of  suffering  to  helpless  women 
and  children,  and  treasures  of  civilization  to  the  world 
and  to  the  generations  that  are  to  follow  us. 

Our  own  unpreparedness  must  be  admitted,  but 
with  unbeaten  and  valiant  friends  there  would  be  less 
risk  of  disaster  than  if  we  supinely  await  their  over- 
throw and  then  have,  practically  alone,  to  battle  for  all 
that,  to  us,  makes  life  worth  living. 

No  one  can  prove  that  such  a  grim  necessity  will 
confront  us,  but  the  American  who  cannot  see  it  as  a 
possible,  even  a  probable  and  not  very  remote  se- 
quence of  the  emergence  of  a  "Triumphant  Germany" 
from  this  war,  is  blind  to  the  teachings  of  history  re- 
mote and  recent. 


REFERENCES 

1.  The  Evening  Telegraph,  Philadelphia,  October  10,  1914. 

2.  Harper's  Weekly,  October,  1914. 

3.  The  Public  Ledger,  October  4,  1914. 

4.  "Imperial  Germany,"  by  Prince  Biilow. 

5.  Professor  Paulsen  of  Berlin;  quoted  by  W.  H.    Dawson 

in  "The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany." 

6.  The  Public  Ledger,  September  27,  1914. 

7.  Quoted  by  "The  Outlook,"  October  21,  1914. 

8.  Quoted  by  "The  Outlook,"  October  21,  1914. 

9.  "Germany's  Swelled  Head,"  London,  1907. 

10.  The  Public  Ledger,  November  13,  1914. 

11.  The  Public  Ledger,  October  25,  1914. 

12.  The  North  American,  Philadelphia,  October  25,  1914. 

13.  The  North  American,  Philadelphia,  September  27,  1914. 

14.  The  North  American,  Philadelphia,  October  26,  1914. 

15.  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  October,  1914. 

16.  "Germany  and  the  Next  War." 

17.  Quoted  by  Reich — op.  cit. 

18.  The  Outlook,  November  4,  1914. 

19.  "The  War  and  America,"  1914. 

20.  The  North  American,  October  6,  1914. 

21.  The  Literary  Digest,  November  7,  1914. 

22.  "Germany  and  the  Germans,"  p.  539. 

23.  Quoted  by  Reich — op.  cit. 

24.  The  North  American,  October  6,  1914, 

25.  The  Times,  London.  August  15,  1914. 

26.  The  Nation,  New  York.  October  15.  1914. 

27.  The  Times,  London,  July  30,  1900. 

28.  The  Times,  London,  August  11,  1900. 

(125) 


126    A  WAR  PRIMER  FOR  AMERICANS 

29.  Emil  Reich — op.  cit. 

30.  The  North  American,  October  11,  1914. 

31.  "Truth  About  Germany :    Facts  About  the  War." 

32.  The  Nation,  page  376,  1914. 

33.  The  Literary  Digest,  October  3,  1914. 

34.  "Nature,"  October  2,  1914. 

35.  The  Nation,  October  15,  1914. 

36.  "Why  and  How  a  War  Lord  Wages  War." 

37.  The  Evening  Bulletin,  Philadelphia,  October  17,  1914. 

38.  The  Record,  Philadelphia,  November  3,  1914. 

39.  New  York  Evening  Post,  November  4,  1914. 

40.  The  New  York  Tribune,  November  12,  1914. 

41.  The  North  American,  October  18,  1914. 

42.  The  New  York  Tribune,  November  10,  1914. 

43.  The  Public  Ledger,  October  26,  1914. 

44.  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1914. 

45.  The  North  American,  October  18,  1914. 

In  addition,  I  have  consulted : 

Pan-Germanism,  by  Roland  G.  Usher. 

The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany,  by  W.  H.  Dawson. 

Germany  and  England,  by  Professor  J-  A.  Cramb. 

Men  Around  the  Kaiser,  by  F.  W.  Wile. 

Why  We  Are  at  War,  Great  Britain's  Case,  by  members  of  the 

Oxford  Faculty  of  Modern  History. 
Nietzsche  and  Treitschke :   The  Worship  of  Power  in  Modern 

Germany,  by  Ernest  Barker,  M.A. 
The  Germans,  (in  two  parts),  by  C.  R.  L.  Fletcher. 
The  War  and  the  British  Dominions,  by  M.  E.  Egerton. 
India  and  the  War,  by  Sir  Ernest  J.  Trevelyan. 
The  Deeper  Causes  of  the  War,  by  Dr.  Sanday. 
The  Nations  of  Europe:   The  Causes  and  Issues  of  the  Great 
War,  by  Charles  Morris. 


C' 


rt-  ^-*^ 


7  6  ^f 


DS23 


[yU^L^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


<^-- 


■^:il.      ■         ■.'' 


^.-v:'^?lt>^fv^H;^j^p#fS#;g@^^^iP^^Pi 


